Stay Connected
Atlanta Black Star/Sports
Sports

‘Challenging Everyone’: Deion Sanders Celebrates Win at JSU Homecoming But His Real Concern Was Addressing the Violence In Jackson, Mississippi

Posted byBy J.R. Gamble | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

Deion Sanders has been very influential in changing the culture and visibility of HBCU football. He has utilized his celebrity and iconic status to secure five-star recruits and weekly national television appearances while changing the perception that HBCU football is an inferior, unmarketable product. 

Jackson State Tigers head coach Deion Sanders directs his players during the Orange Blossom Classic game between the Florida A&M Rattlers and the Jackson State Tigers. (Photo by Nick Tre. Smith/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The second-year coach has also used his platform to teach lessons about life and speak to social issues that impede the progress and safety of the Black community. 

Saturday was one of those days for Coach Prime, who used the large homecoming turnout to plead with the city of Jackson to stop the killings. Jackson, Mississippi, just reached reached its 100th killing in the city in September. Black men are dropping like flies. Homicides have been on the rise.

Deion Sanders’ Stop The Violence Movement

The Clarion Ledger reports, “If someone were to profile the average murder victim in Jackson, the victim would be Black and taken down by a bullet or bullets, according to analysis by the Clarion Ledger.”

Eliminating the Black on Black violence is very important to Sanders.

“One thing I’d love to happen, in challenging everyone in Jackson… right now we gotta stop the killing,” Prime told reporters following his team’s 28-7 win over the Alabama State Hornets in front of a record-setting crowd of over 53,000 in Jackson, Mississippi for homecoming 2021. 

 “We got to stop the violence. If we can come here with over 50,000 people and resound with one another … white, Black, Hispanic, Asian and whatever and all cheer for one purpose just to see a football game.

“A game. A game. If we can coincide, we should be able to do the same thing in the streets…I just wish, let’s start this one day at a time. No killing, no killing I’m serious about that.”

“We really need to make a valiant effort to stop the violence in Jackson. Now let’s get to the game.”

Coach Prime continues to use his platform to enrich the life of Jackson State University students, athletes and the surrounding communities, especially those marred in violence.

To find out how Deion’s star quarterback Shedeur performed in the homecoming game click here

Democracy needs journalism it can trust.

This election season, the stakes are higher than usual — and so is the pressure on newsrooms to soften their coverage, stay quiet, or just disappear. Independent reporting, the kind that answers to readers instead of advertisers or political pressure, matters more in a moment like this, not less.

For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed independent and reader-funded. We have no corporate owner and no shareholders telling us what to cover or how to cover it. That independence is also our biggest vulnerability: nothing protects it except readers choosing to fund it directly.

Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under in a moment like this, it's rarely the independent, reader-funded ones that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Give once Give monthly Support another way

Related Stories

Back to top