LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sadiqa Reynolds, the President and CEO of the Louisville Urban League (LUL), first met Jack Harlow in the summer of 2020, when the rapper, a Louisville native, joined her to protest the police killing of Breonna Taylor.
They marched together and when she and her children were separated, his security team helped out. “We created a bit of a bond at that point,” Reynolds told Spectrum News 1.
That bond deepened this week when Harlow announced donations to five local organizations, including the LUL. The 23-year-old also announced donations to AMPED, Center for Women and Families, Grace M. James Academy of Excellence, and Metro United Way.
The Louisville Urban League will receive $15,000 from Harlow, who stipulated that it be used to help women. “We will use it to help women who are trying to move, for down-payment assistance and deposit assistance on rentals,” Reynolds said.
She said the goal will be to do “whatever we can do to help families get stable housing, because how do you educate a child that doesn't know where they're going to live?”
The Metro United Way said it hasn’t decided how to use Harlow’s donation while a spokesperson for Jefferson County Public Schools said Grace M. James Academy of Excellence, an all-girls middle school in the Park DuValle neighborhood, will use Harlow’s donation on musical instruments. AMPED, a music program for young people, and the Center for Women and Families, which serves survivors of partner violence and sexual assault, did not respond to questions about how they will use their donations.
Harlow also started a fundraiser on Instagram for the Center for Women and Families, with the social media site offering to match up to $50,000 in donations. As of Friday morning, the fundraiser had tallied more than $21,000.
This was not the rapper’s first act of generosity involving the LUL. Reynolds said Harlow has previously donated baseball uniforms to the organization, which were given to a Special Olympics team. Nor was it his first high-profile donation befitting Kentucky. After winning a two-on-two basketball tournament with rapper Quavo, and collecting $500,000, Harlow said he would donate the money to Kentucky State University and Simmons College of Kentucky, both of which are historically Black colleges (HBCUs).
Reynolds said she does not expect this to be the last time Harlow supports his hometown either.
“He has helped us in a major way and I think this is just the beginning,” she said. “I think there will be more. There will be other things that he'll do not just for the Louisville Urban League, but also for the city. And I think we should be proud of him.”