Exploring Black Milwaukee    
       
A coldtype initiative      
       
The Late Migration
 
Tens of thousands of African Americans came to Milwaukee in the years following World War Two. The move was called the "late migration" because it came a generation after a similar influx into other Midwestern cities like Chicago and Detroit.
 
African Americans were drawn to Milwaukee by the prospect of good-paying factory jobs, and by the vibrant economic and social life that accompanied those jobs.
 
Then the bottom dropped out of Milwaukee's manufacturing economy, with devastating consequences.
 
Learn more:
  • Bronzeville: Milwaukee's original African American community
  • No Love: Voices from an inner-city neighborhood
  • In Deep: The world as it looks from 21st and Hopkins
  • Neu Life: An after-school program for at-risk kids
  • Khalil: More about web site co-producer Khalil Coleman
  • Now What? Ideas for improving today's inner-city labor market