Jones to address topic Betrayal: Sold Out by the Civil Rights Movement

Libertarian, entertainer and entrepreneur, Reginald Jones offers a talk titled Betrayal: Sold Out by the Civil Rights Movement at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 14, in Room 204, Carnegie Science Hall, 44 Campus Ave.

Sponsored by the Bates College Republicans, the event is open to the public at no cost.

“Mr. Jones’ talk will focus on the struggle for civil rights and how the African-American community has been mistreated by public officials over the years,” said Michael O’Gorman, a Bates first-year student and second vice president of the Bates Republicans.

Jones is a singer and hip-hop entrepreneur. As a young man in the South Bronx, Jones worked with rap artist Grand Master Flash, one of the pioneers of the hip hop movement. Jones parlayed that experience into a job at MCA/Universal Records, and in 1990 formed his own entertainment company, The Reggitainment Group, which managed music acts.

In 1994, Jones made the leap to public speaking and politics when he joined Project 21, an African-American leadership group. In 1995, he got his first talk-radio job on WTTM in Trenton, New Jersey. Since then, he has hosted the Grassroots Liv” show on National Empowerment Television, spoken on dozens of college campuses and manned the microphone on the Radio America Network’s Generation Now.

Jones occasionally performs as a backup singer for George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic, and volunteers for Afri-Male, a New Jersey mentoring group for young black males. Throughout all his endeavors, Jones has offered a simple message of empowerment for the black community: “Capitalism.”

“That’s the word that I want to hear from now on,” he says. “Talk to me about free enterprise. Racism did not destroy our neighborhoods. Government did it.”