Bronzeville

This report draws a detailed picture of the Bronzeville neighborhood circa 1945.

Among the key findings:

A combination of "gentlemen's agreements" and restrictive racial covenants confined the city's non-white population to a small, overcrowded district just north of downtown -- comprised of the oldest and most rundown housing stock in the city. The degree of segregation in Milwaukee was similar to what was found at the time in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia.

The black unemployment rate was 51%, compared to 17% for whites. Those blacks who did have work were employed almost entirely in unskilled, low-wage jobs, most commonly as laborers, janitors, porters and domestics.

In March and April of 1954, the Milwaukee Journal published a series of stories about conditions in the inner core. The paper reported:

About 15% of the city's 33,856 acres were "blighted." They were occupied by 19% of the city's population. "Thousands of people are jammed into structures that should only hold hundreds. ... The ways of life are appalling." (p. 4)

In 1953, the Housing Authority surveyed the area south of Walnut Street between Sixth and Eleventh (which later became the Hillside Terrace Neighborhood Redevelopment Project) and found that 64 lots had been subdivided into 121, and of those lots, a third had more than one principal building on them. The survey found that 87% of the homes in the area were in less than fair condition, and 70% lacked minimum sanitary fixtures. The study cited "noise from juke boxes and people in near-by 'taverns, pool halls and restaurants,' the 'constant odors' from near-by manufactoring establishments, the high degree of traffic congestion, and noise and smoke from vehicles." (p. 7)

The Sixth Ward was built up after the Civil War. A total lack of zoning laws prior to 1920 allowed the area to grow helter-skelter; it was crowded with a chaotic mix of commercial and residential buildings. Germans lived there but left around 1905-'10 for newer housing; they were followed by by Russian Jews who, in turn, prospered and left the area. Because the aging properties had limited resale potential they retained ownership and rented to blacks, new migrants who were not permitted to live elsewhere in the city, even if they could afford to. Low rents discouraged good upkeep of the properties, and they deteriorated. (p. 9)

By 1954, the Housing Authority had built 969 housing units for veterans, but only 232 low-income units in the core in a two-block area (Hillside Terrace) with 404 more planned for the Hillside Terrace Addition. (p. 10)

Mayor Zeidler blamed slum conditions in part on the people who lived there. He said the newcomers were "unused to the Milwaukee requirements for sanitation and cleanliness" and concluded, "Sleazy people make for sleazy living conditions." However, the paper noted that "milking landlords" who neglected their properties were also to blame.

Finally, the report acknowledged the "Negro problem," including racial discrimination in housing. It quoted the Governor's Commission on Human Rights: "Every thinking citizen is aware that it is more difficult for a nonwhite family to rent or buy a good home than it is for a white family." Also from the Commission: between 1940 and 1950, Milwaukee's nonwhite population increased 145% but the number of dwelling units available to non-whites increased by only 79%. "Overcrowded conditions are the obvious result, particularly since discrimination tends to corral nonwhites in certain areas." ... "Milwaukee Negroes do not live in the blighted section of town through choice. Even those with sufficient income must usually remain there because they are not wanted elsewhere, because they meet a fairly ironclad 'gentleman's agreement' when they try to move." ...As a result, the paper noted, "a large share of Milwaukee's nonwhites have been segregated to the 6th Ward," creating the misimpression that blight and Negro occupancy always go hand-in-hand.(p. 14)

Source: The Blight Within Us (series reprint), Milwaukee Journal, May 1954.

This undated report (probably from the mid-Fifties) documents a year-long effort of the Citizens' Urban Renewal Committee to "learn more about families who seem to have difficulty in meeting the minimal standards of the community."

The report begins with the observation that "a sizable migration from the country to the city is occurring. ... Many of the persons who [are] classified as marginal farm laborers and marginal farmers are attracted to the central city. This trend has been accelerated by the government farm policy which has constantly lowered farm subsidies, forcing the small farmer out of existence and with him have gone the unskilled agriculture worker, the share croppers. All have become marginal."

"Cast adrift at the end of World War II, as the result of the changing industrial and agricultural economies the displaced mural [sic]migrant sought new opportunities in the great industrial centers. He sought his fortune and found his place in the recently deserted central core of the city. ... Here he occupied the place where generations of newcomers before had settled. This is been the receiving station for wave after wave of immigrants, all had left as they rose up the economic ladder. As each group left their ghetto they left behind those that could not meet the challenge, so a small, hard core remained, helpless in meeting their own problems, they remained to become the hosts for this new onslaught."

Some in this new group… Possessed a conspicuousness that would make assimilation very difficult for they were black, some were brown. ... "

"These people, deprived so long, in education, health, culture, etc. were inadequate to meet the standards and demands of urban living. With them came their problems as well as their hopes. Their strangeness was not accepted or understood, the community recoiled and observed their difference while the newcomer huddled together without leadership, without help. More services were needed, police, health, fire and social services, causing additional costs to taxpayers[s] ever being asked for more and more, and the migrant hovering over and over in his miserable slum. Now the taxpayer must choose whether he will continue inadequate opportunity for growth and social adjustment, or whether he will make an investment in his fellow man, to enable him to find his place, his a part of the community. ..."

It must be recognized that the newcomer to the central city is primarily from rural communities, the majority coming from the South, Puerto Rico, and other rural areas in the North and Middle West. Most of come to the city at the invitation of large foundries, tanneries and other consumers of unskilled labor. They are needed in our economy. In some instances there are cultural, as well as racial differences, but shared in common is a lack of preparation for urban living. Left to themselves, it is impossible to hope that assimilation and adjustment will be accomplished easily. Their bewilderment and inadequacy will provoke us frustration and frustration will give rise to aggressive acts which will antagonize the total community who subsequently will turn its hostility on new, on the newcomer."

The report then goes on them to recommend a number of specific actions the city might take to address the problem.

Source: The Problem Family, Citizens' Urban Renewal Committee (undated).

African Americans made up two percent of the Milwaukee population in 1945. They comprised 15% of the population by 1970. They came here in large numbers after World War II, along with Appalachian whites and displaced rural workers, in search of jobs, which were plentiful in Milwaukee's booming postwar economy.

At first, the growing population of blacks was isolated in a 75-block area of the city's inner core known as Bronzeville. Whites outside the core stubbornly resisted any encroachment of blacks into their neighborhoods. The inability to move to better housing, even if they could afford it, was what set blacks apart from other immigrants to the city.

As African Americans continued to migrate into Milwaukee, their growing numbers put intolerable pressure on the old, decrepit inner city housing supply. In 1967, blacks responded by taking to the streets to demand an open housing ordinance in Milwaukee.

The open housing marches started just after the 1967 summer riots in the heart of Milwaukee's black community and continued for 200 nights thereafter, until the spring of 1968.

At the head of the marches were members of the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council, an affiliated group called the Commandos and a Catholic priest, Father James Groppi, who was a mentor to the Youth Council and to the Commandos. Father Groppi worked out of an inner-city church, St. Boniface, which became the organizing epicenter of the open housing campaign.

Groppi had been to Selma, Alabama, and was inspired by the civil rights activism he found there, and elsewhere in the South. In 1965, Groppi stood on the steps of the Alabama state capitol and declared, "God is the father of us all and we are all brothers in him. We have an obligation to help our brothers. If we go to church on Sunday and preach the doctrine of Christ and then do nothing, we are hypocrites."

Groppi was also influenced by the writings of Father Joseph Cardijn, a Belgian priest whose philosophy was well-known in Milwaukee, where the Cardijn Center was an early stronghold of integration discussion and later action, especially among the younger clergymen. Cardijn's thesis was that individuals have a duty to observe, judge and act on the world around them. Action -- confrontational but non-violent -- was the cornerstone of the open housing campaign.

One of the most dramatic confrontations occurred on Aug. 29, 1967, when open housing advocates, accompanied by police, marched across the 16th Street Viaduct in Milwaukee into the white, working class ethnic south side demanding civil rights and open housing. They were met by a crowd of 13,000 angry whites hurling threats, jeers and obscenities, followed by bottles, eggs, rocks, firecrackers, urine and spit. Later than night, the Youth Council's Freedom House, on the north side, burned to the ground.

In the weeks and months that followed, thousands of civil rights supporters flocked to Milwaukee to join the marches, which drew national attention. Open housing opponents organized increasingly large counter-demonstrations.

The open housing campaign began to lose momentum after the Christmas holidays at the end of 1967. Marches were suspended on March 14, 1968. Then, on April 4, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Soon thereafter, Congress passed the 1968 Civil Rights Act, which had a strong open housing component. On April 30, the Milwaukee Common Council surprised most observers by passing a citywide open housing ordinance that was even broader than the federal law.

Father Groppi resigned as advisor to the Milwaukee NAACP Youth Council in November of 1968. He turned to other campaigns, for welfare rights and against job discrimination and the Vietnam War. He later quit the priesthood, married and drove a Milwaukee city bus until his death in 1985.

Source: Jones, Patrick D. "The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee." Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press

Three persons were killed by gunfire in the 1967 Milwaukee riots: Bryan Moschea, 24, a Milwaukee cop; Annie Mosley, 77, a widow; and Clifford McKissick, 18, a college student. A fourth victim, Willie Ella Green, 43, died of a heart attack during the riots.

According to published accounts:

The riots occurred after police broke up a fight on the evening of July 29 at a downtown night club called the Scene. Over the next 24 hours, gangs of teenagers roamed the inner city, but police remained passive until they got a report of shots fired, just before midnight, July 30, on West Center near Third Street.

That incident apparently began with a white man who was cruising the neighborhood in a car, shouting racial epithets. When he shot and wounded a woman, Anna James, her neighbor, John Tucker, shot the white man and wounded him, and cops were called to the scene.

The police thought they were coming to flush out a sniper. When they arrived, Tucker shot and wounded the first cop out of the car, Capt. Kenneth Hagopian.

A hail of gunfire erupted. Several other police officers were wounded. Tucker was shot and then arrested. In the melee, police threw tear gas and two homes burned. The bodies of policeman Bryan Moschea and widow Anne Mosley were found later in the rubble.

Tucker was tried for Moschea's killing but acquitted. He was convicted on other shooting-related charges.

Mayor Henry Maier imposed a curfew at 3:45 a.m., July 31, and called for the National Guard. The riots wound down and damage to property was confined to the African American inner core, but a limited curfew remained in effect.

On Aug. 2, police shot and killed Clifford McKissick, the college student, at the back door of his home on N. 15th Street. Allegedly McKissick was part of a gang of youths throwing firebombs at a paint store.

The mayor's curfew order was lifted on Aug. 9. On August 28, 1967, nightly open housing demonstrations - which had been suspended by the riots - resumed with a march on the city's south side.

A 2007 article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recounts a somewhat different narrative.

Throughout the survey blacks reported greater inequality, poor conditions and more discrimination than whites apparently saw. Blacks also found the pace of efforts to resolve these inequities as being too slow. This feeling of dissatisfaction carries over into the general area of civil rights and integration.

Question 23: Barely a third of blacks agreed with the statement that “Negroes around here are treated fairly”; in contrast approximately three fourths of whites agreed.

Attitudes toward three aspects of civil rights; Table 23: Negroes around here are treated fairly 30% of the black respondents versus 70 to 80% of the whites. Nearly all Negro grievances are legitimate 72% black versus 30 to 55% white. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the day has finally come when Negroes can go to the same schools restaurants and hotels as whites - blacks 45% yes whites 70% yes.

Questions 24 and 25 blacks were much more likely than whites to say that both the federal government and the local government are not doing enough to encourage racial integration.

Table 26: attitudes toward the political process. According to the study authors, compared to whites blacks consistently scored lower on political efficacy and highest on mistrust of public officials, political cynicism and political alienation. "On the whole blacks do not feel they can achieve anything on their own behalf through the usual political mechanisms." They continue, paraphrasing, whatever the reasons may be for this outcome the fact it is so means that Milwaukee blacks as a group are likely to rely less on their political and voting power and more on some other form of power to achieve changes for which they feel so much need.

Table 28: attitude toward demonstrations and riots. Blacks were much more likely than whites to agree with the following statements: demonstrations are a natural form of politics, riots are unpopular but effective for bringing about social change, if it had not been for riots Congress would not have passed the civil rights law, and Negroes have more to gain than lose by resorting to violence in the civil rights movement.

Conversely, whites were much more likely than blacks to agree with the following statement: generally in Milwaukee and in Detroit demonstrations and disturbances have set back the Negroes cause for civil rights.

Concluding remarks: compared to whites, larger proportions of blacks perceive inequalities and deprivations are being suffered by members of the black community; proportionally more blacks feel less political power and more political alienation; and a consistently higher proportion of blacks see benefits to the Negro’s cause in civil rights as a result of demonstrations and riots.

One cannot fail to recognize the conditions for continued and persisting unrest: blacks have been separate and unequal for such a long time that demonstrations and riots may be the only effective means available to them for exerting pressure for change. Moreover the perceptions of a substantial proportion of whites as to the causes and desired solutions to outbreaks of disturbances, that is, the focus on the control of behavior which deviates from traditional white middle-class norms and values, would probably widen the schism and increase the likelihood of more and greater violence.

Source: Community Opinions of the Summer 1967 Civil Disturbance in Milwaukee: A Survey Conducted by the University Wisconsin-Milwaukee Office of Social Research, School of Social Welfare, April 1968

Bronzeville was Milwaukee's original black enclave. It extended from Third Street (now King Drive) on the east to Twelfth Street on the west, and from Highland Avenue on the south to North Avenue

At one time it was the economic and social crossroads of the African American community.

In Bronzeville there was nightlife. Bars, restaurants and cabarets with top-shelf entertainment.

In Bronzeville there was commerce. Grocery stores, a barber shop, a pharmacy, a funeral home, a cleaner and a tailor. A law office. A movie theater. Most of them run – if not owned – by African Americans.

In Bronzeville there was a spirit of unity and a tentative feeling of empowerment.

Then, shortly after World War Two, came urban renewal, followed by the expressways. Bronzeville was destroyed by the wrecking ball and the paving machine. To this day some folks claim there was a political conspiracy to pull down Bronzeville and disperse its population. They believe that powerful people – motivated by fear and racial animosity – used federal money and government authority to destroy Bronzeville and drive away the people who lived, worked and played there.

Was the elimination of Bronzeville a racial purge or civic improvement? The truth is lost to history. What remains are vacant lots and nostalgia.

Old-timers who lived there “back in the day” remember good times, a hint of prosperity and a strong sense of community in Bronzeville. They wish, somehow, that something like it could return. So they were excited and hopeful when the city launched a Bronzeville redevelopment campaign – with much fanfare – in 2005.

The plan was to re-establish an arts and entertainment district, something like the old Bronzeville, on North Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Seventh Street The neighborhood would become a business, entertainment and cultural center that would draw folks – and their money – from across the region to work, play and perhaps even live there.

As of August, 2019, two major projects have been completed. Pete's Fruit Market has moved into a renovated building on the corner of North Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. Nearby, the old Garfield School building has been converted to apartments and studio space, and a new, multi-use commercial building has been completed on the corner of North Avenue and Fourth Street. That building now houses a revived America's Black Holocaust Museum which, it is hoped, will be a centerpiece that attracts visitors and generates traffic for satellite business like restaurants and taverns.