Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opinion on the below topics.
By Gabe Sanders.
The proposed legislation, its author declared, was “doomed to a violent death the moment it was uttered… like so many other issues pertaining to racial discrimination that have been sent to the Mayor’s office.”[2] First introduced eight years after the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, this proposal—entitled the Phillips Housing Ordinance—sought to prohibit “both formal and informal discrimination in renting or selling of housing within the city” of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.[3]
Amid a crippling housing crisis afflicting Black Milwaukeeans, such a measure was deemed imminently necessary by Milwaukee-based civil rights advocacy groups—most notably the Milwaukee Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The dearth of housing options available was in part a product of the Great Migration, which brought swaths of Black southerners north. However, making matters significantly worse, “available housing was also being reduced due to urban renewal projects that included tearing down old housing units,” and those who attempted to leave predominantly Black neighborhoods were frequently rejected outright by White renters and sellers.[4] Unfortunately, the alderwoman who first introduced the ordinance, Vel Phillips—who was also fittingly both the first woman and the first African American elected to Milwaukee’s Common Council—would be proven correct by the Council’s 1962 vote. There was only one vote in favor, her own.
Despite the prescience of Alderwoman Phillips’ declaration of doom, neither she nor other proponents of fair housing (also known as open housing) were deterred by the initial outcome. In fact, throughout the mid-1960s, Phillips “proposed the same measure year after year… only to see it defeated overwhelmingly each time.”[5] This consistent result was a reflection of her colleagues’ unyielding apathy (and often outright hostility) toward their Black constituents. Fortunately, in late 1966, the NAACP Youth Council began to show promise of becoming a much-needed catalyst for legislative reform.
Throughout December, members of the Youth Council—led by revered civil rights activist and Catholic priest Father James Groppi—went door to door in the all-White south side of Milwaukee singing Christmas carols for homeowners who were virulently opposed to having Black neighbors.[6] The spring and early summer were defined by Youth Council-led prayer vigils and picketing campaigns, during which they would demonstrate outside the “offices and homes of aldermen who had black constituents but who were voting against the fair housing act.”[7] Alderwoman Phillips also arranged for Father Groppi to speak before the Council, during which he warned of flaring tempers, which ultimately boiled over in late July. By the end of the summer, calls for open housing among the aforementioned grassroots organizations were reaching a fever pitch. Following a month of upheaval, Father Groppi and Alderwoman Phillips resolved to initiate a string of marches aimed at turning up the heat on the Common Council to pass an open housing ordinance.
The first of these rallies convened on August 28, 1967, at Father Groppi’s “spiritual and political home,” St. Boniface Church.[8] From there, more than 100 fair housing activists embarked upon a symbolic journey to the Sixteenth Street Viaduct—the bridge connecting “the segregated African American North Side with the predominately white ethnic working-class South Side.”[9] The protestors were met warmly at the north end of the viaduct by a group of allies holding signs that said, “We South Siders Welcome Negroes.”[10] As they approached the end of the bridge, however, the Youth Council members and their fellow advocates were engulfed in vile hate speech from the 5,000 most hostile of White Milwaukeeans. Residents held signs reading “Polish Power” and “Go Back to Africa,” as they screeched slurs and hurled “stones, bottles, garbage, and chunks of wood.”[11] Shortly after Father Groppi and his entourage arrived at the Kosciuszko Park, where they had a picnic permit, physical altercations broke out. Unsurprisingly, the law enforcement in attendance provided little aid to the vastly outnumbered Black demonstrators—who vowed to return until an open housing measure was passed.
The following evening, two hundred activists replicated the previous night’s journey, with only greater verve. Traversing the Sixteenth Street Viaduct, the chanters of Black Power slogans and singers of freedom songs were again met with an onslaught of verbal and physical violence. Spewing Nazi rallying cries, counter-protestors broke through the police line and began assaulting peaceful marchers as “[r]iot-clad police struggled to restore order.”[12] When they finally managed to flee the South Side and return to the “Freedom House,” further conflict between police and the Youth Council’s security unit—the Commandos—prompted officers to shoot tear-gas into the wooden building. As it burst into flames and “Commandos scrambled to evacuate those inside, police blocked firefighters from the area.”[13] Following this seemingly purposeful act, the mayor placed a 30-day ban on night-time marches. However, when the Youth Council and Alderwoman Phillips held a peaceful rally on the ashes of the Freedom House the next day, 50 people were arrested.
Father Groppi and Alderwoman Phillips decided to alter their strategy: “If they were going to be arrested even when they didn’t march, they may as well march.”[14] And march they did. Despite their impending arrest, night after night, between August of 1967 and March of 1968, Father Groppi and Alderwoman Phillips led winding processions and received mounting support. When “117 adults and 17 juveniles”—including the movement’s two figureheads—were detained during one demonstration, news media from across the country traveled to Milwaukee to cover a historic moment that was turning into a “national movement.”[15]
Along with the media, NAACP members and supporters voyaged to the “Selma of the North.” Civil rights giants, including Dr. King, sent letters voicing “[their] support and [their] prayers.”[16] One September march involved 5,000 fair housing advocates. These events were collectively referred to as the “March on Milwaukee”—a partial misnomer, considering that there was a grand total of 200 consecutive days of marching on Milwaukee, which the Youth Council decided to end on March 30, 1968.
Just two weeks later, Dr. King was assassinated. That day, 15,000 civil rights activists gathered in downtown Milwaukee to march in his honor: “the largest in the city’s history and one of the nation’s largest memorial demonstrations for Martin Luther King.”[17] The following week, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed by President Johnson, and shortly after, Milwaukee’s Common Council passed an open housing ordinance that was even more progressive than the national legislation. The relentless tenacity of Alderwoman Phillips, Father Groppi, and the Youth Council had finally paid off. Their journey to the mountaintop had reached a major milestone.
[1] Patrick Jones, “Reckoning with the ‘Selma of the North’ on the 50th Anniversary of the Fair Housing Act of 1968,” Medium (blog), April 11, 2018.
[2] Kevin D. Smith, “From Socialism to Racism: The Politics of Class and Identity in Postwar Milwaukee,” Michigan Historical Review 29, no. 1 (2003): 91, https://doi.org/10.2307/20174004.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Margaret Rozga, “March on Milwaukee,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History 90, no. 4 (2007): 30.
[6] Rozga, “March on Milwaukee.”
[7] Ibid.
[8] Patrick D. Jones, “‘Selma of the North’: The Fight for Open Housing in Milwaukee,” Magazine of History 26, no. 1 (January 2012): 17–22.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Rozga, “March on Milwaukee.”
[11] Jones, “Selma of the North.”
[12] Rozga, “March on Milwaukee.”
[13] Jones, “Selma of the North.”
[14] Rozga, “March on Milwaukee.”
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Ibid.