U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California visited Jackson to highlight a technology job training initiative with Jackson State University he’s spearheading as part of a larger effort to connect the tech sector to historically Black colleges and universities.

Khanna, a Democrat, represents Silicon Valley, home to Google, Nvidia and Apple. His Thursday visit is part of the congressman’s broader effort to connect Black communities, particularly in the Deep South, with the uber-wealthy companies in his home district.  

“We need a generation of people who are participating in the modern digital economy that are being trained and educated right here in Jackson,” Khanna said at the Smith Robertson Museum downtown.

The program gives $5,000 scholarships to students at Jackson State University and allows them to participate in an 18-month course, according to Khanna. After completing the program, the graduates are usually offered a lucrative job in the technology sector, with a starting salary ranging from $65,000 to $80,000. 

“You have to bring the digital revolution to the Black South,” Khanna said. 

The son of Indian immigrants, Khanna said he and and his family have a deep appreciation for the Civil Rights Movement and the Mississippi organizers at its epicenter. 

The California lawmaker said his grandfather was jailed in India for four years for his support of Mahatma Gandhi’s movement for independence from the British Empire. That same movement in India inspired the nonviolent organizing tactics utilized by civil rights leaders such as Medgar Evers, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. 

“The Civil Rights Movement then led to the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, and that’s what led my parents to come to the United States,” Khanna said. 

Despite its rich civil rights history and status as the Blackest state in the nation, Mississippi is sometimes overlooked by the national Democratic Party because of the state’s overall conservative electorate. 

Khanna told Mississippi Today in an interview that the national Democratic Party should invest more in Mississippi. If it supports organizing efforts, he said, the Magnolia State could become competitive in statewide elections. 

Beyond politics, the lawmaker said the party and nation did not support the capital city enough during the Jackson water crisis that left thousands of residents without clean running water and has not put Mississippi at the front and center of economic development. 

“Anyone who wants to understand the history of segregation, the history of racial justice, has to understand Mississippi,” Khanna said. “And anyone who wants to see the hope and promise of economic development has to come here.”