Segregated Milwaukee hasn't changed much in 50 years, community discussion suggests
Karen HerzogPrentice McKinney marched in Milwaukee's open housing protests 50 years ago after his brother came home from Vietnam and couldn't buy a house for their mother because he was black.
On Wednesday, McKinney and several others who marched during open housing protests acknowledged that what they stood for in the summer of 1967 still has not happened in Milwaukee.
The reality of 2017: Black homeownership has never been above 50%, and Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in America. If you don't own a home, it's difficult to build wealth.
"We changed the law 50 years ago so we could live in an integrated society, but every time African-Americans moved toward whites, they moved," McKinney told a mixed race crowd of about 180 residents gathered at the Wisconsin Black Historical Society for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's panel discussion — "Housing and Segregation in Milwaukee, Then and Now."
Several of the marchers from the 1967 protests attended Wednesday night's community discussion. They stood one at a time at the microphone, calmly telling their stories. One was 8 years old in 1967 and watched police with guns attempt to control crowds — crowds of counterprotesters who vastly outnumbered those marching to bring about open housing laws.
Wednesday night, there were no shaking fists, no raised voices. The stories were powerful enough.
McKinney said he learned from his brother that playing by the rules doesn't work. You must change the game — even if it means accepting segregation is the nature of the city, he said.
Segregation would be acceptable, as long as there's no inequity in wealth, McKinney said he has concluded at age 70, no longer an idealistic 19-year-old.
"When you fight for something for 50 years and nothing changes ... you have to accept reality. White people who want to live in an integrated community will find a way."
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McKinney and others at the community discussion called for reinvesting in the central city: getting involved in things that will enrich the community and making it a desirable place to live with affordable housing and jobs.
Take rent, for example.
Currently, 40% of low- to moderate-income families in Milwaukee spend more than half their income on rent, said Brian Sonderman, executive director of Milwaukee's Habitat for Humanity. Only 1 in 4 who qualify for housing assistance receive a voucher. Waiting lists are closed. Some landlords also don't want to accept vouchers; the assistance comes with monitoring of housing conditions.
Assistant City Attorney Kail Decker suggested a "rent correlation law" that would set a ceiling for rents, based on assessed value of rental properties. It would create an incentive for improving assessed values because then rent could be increased, he said.
The law, Decker said, would cap rent at 2.5% of the property's assessed value. Many landlords currently charging a higher percentage are concentrated in a small area of the city — the central city, he noted.
The reality check: A so-called rent correlation law would require passage by the state Legislature.
In Cleveland, people invested in the black community, creating companies and jobs for African-Americans who couldn't get jobs elsewhere, Journal Sentinel columnist James E. Causey, one of the event's moderators, noted.
In Milwaukee, manufacturing jobs that evaporated over the past several decades have never been replaced.
McKinney was a young man protesting harassment of blacks by police and the slow movement of open housing laws. He was among 100 commandos — black men ages 18 to 30 — who formed a protective barrier around Father James E. Groppi and the marchers the white priest rallied together.
Groppi was the spokesman, one former marcher noted Wednesday night, because "we couldn't be heard as black people."
Groppi's widow, Margaret Rozga, told those gathered Wednesday that it's important to understand similarities between then and now. "Why is there progress when there is progress, and what is it that reverses it?" she asked.
When jobs moved from the central city as manufacturers closed down, the door slammed shut on economic progress made in the decades after the open housing marches, she said.
Wednesday's panel discussion, supported by Aurora Health Care, was the first of six community discussions tied into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's ongoing “50-Year Ache” series, which examines a knot of community issues.
Among the issues: Housing. Jobs. Crime. And education.