Resources
Online Interactive Resources
- UW-Milwaukee's "March on Milwaukee Civil Rights History Project": For the 40th anniversary, the efforts of the March On Milwaukee committee resulted in the creation of a digital archive housed by the UW-Milwaukee library. It contains many resources to explore, including a timeline of events, a map of Milwaukee with key locations, and an extensive bibliography with suggestions for many more books, articles, and other resources.
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's 50 Year Ache project looks back at the Civil Rights Movement in Milwaukee and provides resources for Milwaukeeans to evaluate how far we have (or haven't) come since the 1960s.
- Wisconsin Historical Society's March on Milwaukee, "A look at the circumstances of and one man's experiences during the fair housing marches and protests in 1967 and 1968 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin"
- American Geographical Society Library's Spatial Profiling: Milwaukee
- Map of sites from Dr. Shirley R. Butler-Derge's Milwaukee 1960s NAACP Youth Council: Tour Guide (South Milwaukee, WI: Nzingha Publishing Company, 2011), pp. 13-14. To purchase a copy of this book, please email butlershirley78@yahoo.com.
Articles for Further Reading
Read Future Political Actors by Erica Metcalfe, published in the autumn 2011 Wisconsin Magazine of History:
Read Commanding A Movement by Erica Metcalfe, published in the winter 2014-2015 Wisconsin Magazine of History:
For the 40th anniversary of Milwaukee’s Open Housing marches, Peggy Rozga wrote an article in the summer 2007 Wisconsin Magazine of History detailing the 200 nights of marching, from the first march on August 28th, 1967 to the passing of Vel Phillips’ fair housing resolution on April 30th, 1968. Click here to read March On Milwaukee by Peggy Rozga:
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service published a series of stories on Milwaukee's Open Housing Marches, including feature articles and interviews with marchers. Click here to see the series and download the book featuring those stories, titled Long March to Freedom.
Other articles include:
- Cohen, Carol. “Vel Phillips: Making History in Milwaukee.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 99, no. 2 (winter 2015-2016): 42-53.
- Jones, Patrick, “Selma of the North,” OAH Magazine of History, Vol. 26, No. 1.
- “African Americans Lead in Milwaukee: The Making of Milwaukee Stories"
- See some of the locations of these events today in this USA Today story about the effort to put up historical markers in Milwaukee to commemorate these events.
Books for Further Reading
- Michael Edmonds, Tools for Teaching Civil Rights in Milwaukee and the Nation Lesson Plans
- Dr. Shirley Butler-Derge’s Milwaukee 1960’s NAACP Youth Council Tour Guide (see map above)
- Patrick D. Jones’ The Selma of the North
- Frank Aukofer’s City with a Chance
- Barbara Miner’s Lessons from the Heartland
- Dr. Shirley Butler-Derge’s Asante Sana, ‘Thank You’ Father James E. Groppi
- Dr. Margaret Rozga’s 200 Nights and One Day
- Justice for All: Selected Writings of Lloyd A. Barbee
Videos
- Black Nouveau: Crossing the Bridge
- Black Nouveau: Freedom Walkers for Milwaukee
- March on Milwaukee: Where are we Now?,” 4th Street Forum at Turner Hall, Milwaukee MPTV 2007
- Bill Weir: States of Change, CNN
- Vel Phillips: Dream Big Dreams, MPTV, (with lesson materials at MPTV)
- Vel Phillips and Father Groppi: The Fight for Fair Housing, PBS Wisconsin
- City within a City: When Pretty Soon Runs Out -- This remarkable 1968 documentary from PBS Wisconsin focuses on families displaced by highway construction and was filmed during the Open Housing Marches.
- BBC Clip: “What’s Changed in America’s Most Segregated City?” (2018)
- Dr. Charles Taylor’s “A Decade of Discontent: A Film on the Milwaukee Civil Rights Movement”, Find more information here.
- CBS58 "Then and Now: Looking Back on the Unrest of 1967 Milwaukee."
Oral Histories
- Prentice McKinney, Fred Reed, and Dr. Shirley Butler interviewed by Simone Lewis and Pilar Sharp from YouthRise. (text)
- Dr. Shirley Butler interviewed by Amanda Wynne. (audio)
- Dr. Shirley Butler-Derge discusses her tour at UW Milwaukee
- Oral Histories in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee March on Milwaukee collection
UW-Milwaukee Professor Emeritus Michael Gordon compiled this bibliography of suggested readings about African Americans, housing, education, and civil rights In Milwaukee.