Bronzeville, Malcolm X's first home, Vel Phillips and the marches across the viaduct.
Bronzeville
Because African Americans were kept out of white clubs and hotels, Milwaukee's Black community built its own world in Bronzeville, centered on Walnut Street. Grocery stores, a bakery, a drugstore and a deli lined the street, and the Metropole became the first Bronzeville club to win a following in the 1920s.
In the 1960s the neighborhood was taken apart, largely through eminent domain, as the I-94 and I-43 freeways were driven through it. The clearance sounded the death knell for many of its Black businesses.
Malcolm X's First Home
From 1926 to 1929, the family of the young Malcolm X lived in Milwaukee at 1012 W. Galena Street. The house was lost to the expressway, and the spot now sits under the on-ramp to I-43. The city has approved a historic marker on the Walnut Street bridge that overlooks it.
Vel Phillips
Vel Phillips was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School. In 1956 she became the first woman and the first African American member of the Milwaukee Common Council, and in 1962 she first proposed an ordinance to outlaw housing discrimination. She went on to become the first African American and first woman to serve as a judge in Wisconsin, and in 1978 the first woman and first person of color elected Wisconsin's Secretary of State.
Across The Viaduct
In the late 1960s the NAACP Youth Council, advised by Father James Groppi and protected by its own Milwaukee Commandos, began a long, continuous campaign of marches for open housing. They crossed the 16th Street Viaduct over the Menomonee River Valley, a symbolic divide in the city, night after night, and in 1968 the Common Council finally passed an open housing law.
Black Milwaukee Today
The city now celebrates Bronzeville with its own Bronzeville Week and is working to bring the district back, and Black-owned restaurants, salons, shops and brands are part of everyday Milwaukee.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Milwaukee on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
North Avenue at Vel R. Phillips Avenue in Bronzeville. Photo: Vigilantcosmicpenguin, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The 16th Street Viaduct, now the James E. Groppi Unity Bridge. Photo: Jim Roberts, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons