As Assistant Pastor of Milwaukee’s St. Gabriel’s Church of God In Christ, Reverend Greg Lewis has spent decades listening to, caring for and empowering Milwaukee’s central city. And, as Executive Director of Souls to the Polls, a non-partisan organization of hundreds of faith leaders committed to strengthening voting rights and civic engagement, Pastor Lewis has been at the epicenter of the fights over voter suppression, economic collapse and pandemic price gouging due to the botched federal response to COVID-19, which exacerbated generations of institutionalized racism. Rev. Lewis was nearly killed by COVID-19, rushed to the Intensive Care Unit at the same time as the voting rights suit he was the lead plaintiff on was being argued before the Supreme Court. Rev. Lewis didn’t quit. “I survived COVID-19 by fighting for my life. I was doing calls from the ICU. I never gave up. And we as a community must never give up, no matter what they throw at us.”

Black Milwaukeeans were more than five times more likely to die of COVID-19 than whites due to federal inaction to stop the pandemic, and twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as Blacks in other states.

“Racism kills people,” said Rev. Lewis, “and there is no better example of a corporate culprit than these big pharmaceutical corporations that price-gouge our community for insulin, for asthma treatments, and many more conditions that disproportionately impact Black people. We will not rest until our government has taken action to end price-gouging and make sure we have access to the life-saving medicines we need.”

For more information on Rev. Lewis, go to: Milwaukee’s Souls to the Polls.