Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of 15 pieces about the Milwaukee Open Housing marches, which took place 50 years ago beginning on Aug. 28, 1967. Watch for the stories every Monday and Thursday.
On Aug. 28 and 29, 1967, civil rights marchers from Milwaukee’s largely African-American North Side crossed the 16th Street Viaduct en route to Kosciuszko Park on the city’s predominately white South Side.
Led by the Rev. James Groppi, advisor of the NAACP Youth Council, and its Commando security unit, 200 council members and supporters marched to protest housing discrimination.
On the first night, the protesters were met by thousands of hostile white counter-protesters at the south end of the bridge. Five thousand counter-protesters, waving signs bearing racist epithets and jeering, followed the marchers to the park and shouted them down. On the march back, the white mob threw stones and bottles.
“We nearly got killed there last night,” said Groppi, a white Catholic priest, in a televised press conference the next day.
Announcing that the Youth Council would march again that night, Groppi said, “We have tried every means possible to bring fair housing legislation to the city of Milwaukee and we’re going to continue to march. … We’re going to exercise (our constitutional right of freedom of speech) regardless of … the danger. We’ll die for that right.”
The turnout on both sides swelled on the second night with counter-protesters numbering 13,000, according to news reports. The protesters were spat on and called names and counter-protesters threw “bricks, bottles and anything they could get their hands on,” said council member Mary Arms, in a recorded account.
“By the time the marchers (returned to) the safety of the viaduct, they looked like refugees from a battle. … Some could not walk and had to be carried by other marchers,” wrote Milwaukee Journal reporter Frank Aukofer in his book about the local movement, “City With a Chance.”
Shortly after the Youth Council’s return to the NAACP headquarters at Freedom House, 1316 N. 15th St., tear gas and bullets from police rifles engulfed the area and the house, setting it on fire. Those inside escaped but the building burned down. Police said they were responding to reports of a sniper, a claim Groppi and the Youth Council disputed.
Related:
Civil rights in the U.S.
Milwaukee’s open housing marches took place against a backdrop of civil rights actions and urban unrest around the country. Battles for fair housing, school desegregation and voting rights came to a head in the summer of 1967.
Mayor Henry Maier called for a voluntary curfew and prohibited night marches for 30 days. Instead of marching, the council held a rally in front of the Freedom House ruins the next evening, but police ruled the gathering illegal and arrested more than 50 people. Council members decided that if they were going to be arrested anyway, they might as well march.
Groppi, the Youth Council and their supporters ended their protests for open housing on March 14, 1968. “Demonstrations, in the form of marches and rallies, had continued for 200 consecutive days since that first tense walk to Kosciuszko Park on Aug. 28, 1967,” wrote Aukofer. Open housing laws had been passed in 17 communities but would not pass in the city of Milwaukee for another month and a half.
Three weeks later, on April 4, as the Youth Council considered how to proceed, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and the nation erupted in grief and violence.
Choosing to honor King’s commitment to non-violence, the Commandos and Groppi organized a march through downtown Milwaukee that culminated in a rally on the North Side. “Over 15,000 people joined in that march, the largest in the city’s history and one of the nation’s largest memorial demonstrations for King,” wrote Groppi’s widow and Youth Council member Margaret Rozga.
Growing frustration
Tensions in Milwaukee had been growing throughout the early 1960s. Activists had taken on the issue of school desegregation with the city’s first major civil rights demonstration, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), in 1963. The following year, African-American attorney Lloyd Barbee brought more than a dozen civil rights, political, labor, religious and social groups together to form the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC) to fight segregation in the public schools, including a large-scale boycott of black schools. In 1965, Barbee filed a federal lawsuit against MPS.
The Youth Council began its first big civil rights campaign in February 1966 when it picketed the whites-only Eagles Club and some of its members’ homes.
Frustration with the lack of civil rights progress in the African-American community, and fear and anger among whites continued to escalate in the summers of 1966 and 1967.
In addition, Milwaukee’s black youth were hearing the call of the nascent black power movement, popularized nationally by leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which spoke of black dignity and self-determination.
On Aug. 9, 1966, Ku Klux Klan members threw a bomb into Freedom House, the NAACP headquarters then located at 2026 N. Fifth St. The incident caused minimal physical damage but raised concerns about threats to members’ safety.
Spurred by distrust of the police, the Youth Council’s direct action committee had formed the Commandos in 1966, a security force committed to protecting marchers without provoking violence.
“Once the Commandos got involved with direct action … they managed to … dramatize this issue of open housing. It placed the spotlight on segregation in the city for the first time,” said Erica Metcalfe, a history professor at Texas Southern University, who conducted research on the Milwaukee Marches at UWM.
Calling the Youth Council “the best in the country,” Metcalfe added, “It stood out as one of the most active and (many of its members) were just high school kids.” Most of the Commandos were in their mid-20s, she said.
On July 30, 1967, just weeks after riots raged in Newark and Detroit, disorder broke out on Milwaukee’s North Side and spread downtown. Sparked by a confrontation between police and a crowd of black citizens outside a nightspot, looting, gunshots and arson reigned for two nights. There were four deaths, hundreds of injuries and more than 1,000 arrests, prompting Mayor Henry Maier to call up the National Guard. He imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew that lasted for more than a week.
Housing conditions
According to the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin’s African-American population increased by nearly 600 percent in the decades prior to the marches, from 12,158 in 1940 to 74,546 in 1960. Urban renewal efforts started after World War II had taken a toll on African-American neighborhoods and housing. The destruction of many older homes and the clearing of a wide swath to build Interstate Highway 43 put particular stress on housing availability. Redlining, restrictive covenants, block busting, predatory lending and insurance practices all contributed to the problem.
Alderwoman Vel Phillips had led the charge to end housing discrimination when she introduced a bill in the Milwaukee Common Council that would outlaw housing discrimination in 1962. The council failed to pass it then and all three times she re-introduced it between 1963 and 1967. Phillips cast the only vote for the bill every time.
In late 1966, Groppi informed the Youth Council that black Viet Nam war veteran Robert Britton had reported that he and his family were barred from renting an apartment at 29th and Burleigh streets on the basis of race.
The council then joined forces with Phillips to support a citywide open housing ordinance.
The viciousness of the counter-protesters was a critical component of the marches, said UWM history professor Robert Smith.
“[The counter-protesters] thought about how to be offensive. They thought about how to create the most hostile environment both in terms of their speech … and their actions and also in their physical violence,” said Smith, who noted that this behavior was not punished.
Smith added that powerful expressions of resistance on the part of counter-protestors generally embolden and reaffirm those who are demanding fair treatment.
“Even in the face of physical violence, and death and maybe losing jobs,…those hostile responses in many cases lead the protestors to find a level of resolve — and this is where marching and singing and prayer come into play — a place of peace in which they no longer fear what will happen.”
Former Commando Fred Reed agreed that as insults and injuries to marchers increased, the number of participants grew.
Smith also pointed to a unique convergence of forces in Milwaukee that shaped events. “That particular moment in the history of the city’s longstanding set of campaigns for equality is … an interesting merger of traditional civil rights activism that we associate with the South and a much more radical, boisterous expression that we associate with the North.”
The talents of leaders such as Phillips, Barbee, Groppi, the Commandos and others led to “intersecting approaches to advancing a civil rights agenda that came together very beautifully in Milwaukee,” Smith said.
“You need the exuberance and the invincibility of youth to dare the status quo to change,” he added
On April 11, a week after King’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act. On April 30, with seven newly elected members, the Common Council passed an even more comprehensive open housing ordinance by a vote of 15 to four.
It took another eight years for Barbee to win the federal case for school desegregation.
Although these laws brought improvements after more than a century of racial discrimination, 50 years later, Milwaukee remains one of the nation’s most segregated cities, in both housing and schools.
Tiffany Koehler says
Thank you for covering these historical events in our city’s and nation’s history. I will keep the Hon. Vel Phiillps up to date with the coverage from this website.
Mary Ann C Borman says
To my friends: If you look hard you will see me in that crowd. As a young North Shore Mother going back to finish college I joined a group of my Jewish friends to provide a summer program at Temple Emmanuel across from UWM, for inner city kids at who were unable to afford summer camp. I also recruited a few of my UWM friends who were involved in the migrant community to volunteer as well. I had been to several of Fr Groppis meetings on the North Side and supported what he was doing. So a friend of mine and I recruited some of the Emmanuel volunteer Moms to get involved in the first day of the March. Being young and inexperienced (dumb) about large demonstrations, and not having any experience of the depth of experience for our children to participate in what we all thought would be a peaceful March. As we drew closer by car to the meeting area for the demonstrators near the North side of the bridge, we realized that this experience would not be what we thought it would be that we wanted our children to share, While we had been assured that it would be a peaceful March, ( and it was on the part of FR. G’s group) that was clearly not the intent of the opposing demonstraters. We quickly turned the car around and took the children and our sitter back to the program at Emmanuel to attend the day session and headed back to the March. As we approached the group as it began to cross the bridge a barrage of glass bottles, rocks and other hard objects were thrown at us as we joined hands in unity to cross from the Northside of the bridge. It was obvious that the people from the South Side clearly did not want us to cross.. Luckily we were at the back end of the crowd, and as we saw the bloodied and battered people from the march move towards us, we all retreated with the other marchers. After picking up my children and their sitter at the temple I was getting out of my friend’s car as they were dropping us off in front of my house in Whitefish Bay . I looked up and down the street and saw at least 10 of my good Christian Church going neighbors standing in the front of their homes or on their front porches, holding rifles and other weapons . I quickly got the children and the sitter into the house and situated in the safest rooms in the back of the house and instructed them not to go outside or near the windows. I crossed the street and approached the group of neighbors and asked what was going on, I thought that maybe for some reason there might have been a demonstration there in the neighborhood. The group were all neighborhood men: One was a VP of a large Milwaukee brewery, another was an accountant, another was an attorney with a well known Milwaukee legal firm,and one was a prominent area realtor. When I asked them what was going on, they explained that “they were defending our block against the Groppi demonstrators and that several neighborhoods had set up neighborhood ” Anti-Groppi Neighborhood watch groups, in case they marched in our neighborhood. ” Unfortunately, that wasn’t all they said, but I refuse to repeat their hateful dialogue. That day was my transition into a true dyed in the wool radical. Since I had already taken Sol Alinsky’s organizing training sessions in Chicago and thought I could deal with, handle and defend these type of dangerous minds sets. But they just blew me away, with their smug, righteous attitudes. But looking back I realized that that incident for me was the indicator of change for me, and Fr Groppi and his brave community followers were the beginning of years of change for Milwaukee. Later I worked with the UWM group sit in with Hispanic students to change the admission requirements for Hispanics and was fortunate to march with him and work for the Migrant Farmworker Movement.
However, as I read the paper, listen to the news and browse on my computer, I cannot help feeling like I am back in the 60’s again, only with a more powerful, moneyed opposition to fight off and very few dedicated volunteer opposition groups to speak about this new type of racisim, zenophobia, sexisim, fathered by the same type of priviledged leaders who are manipulatng the unenlightened, uneducated and unfortunately unsophisticated populations in our communitys? Where are the Fr. Groppies, The MLKS, The Cesar Chavese’s, “The Kennedys” and the Eleanor Roosevelts of our day? Where are the children of the student demonstrators of the 60’s? These type of battles cannot be won and then ignored and walked away from. These societal manipulators have sowed their seeds deep in our communitees and with a little nourishment, especially from the rich “manure” of rhetoric and hatred they have been fed lately, are raising their dangerous voices again. Those of you who deplore what you are seeing on TV and in the news and walk away thinking you cannot do anything, are very much like the good german people who wrung their hands, and deplored what Hitler was doing to the Jews and their country, but did not stand up. I remember the stories my father told me when I was a child of the Germany he fled, just before the Naxi’s took over. But I wasn’t afraid since he always reassured me: ” But that can’t happen here! This is the United States!. I need to stop and ask my self: Is It: Is it still really the UNITED States? .
Preston Ladd Baity says
I was also there that night on the 16th Street viaduct. I was a police officer then and was positioned at the head of the line in front of Fr. Groppi. The brick, bottle, and glass throwing started after the marchers crossed National Ave. It was then that the face of a boy about 8 to 10 years old was bloodied by an object thrown by an anti-protester. Many others were similarly injured and soiled by urine and feces thrown on them. Fr. Groppi clearly did not anticipate the attack nor did the police. The reason the marchers stopped on the viaduct was because from the south-side foot of viaduct we could see the swarming mass of anti protesters at 16th and National Ave., but Fr. Groppi insisted on continuing. After the the little boy was struck, I told Fr. Groppi to look at the boy’s face and that the marchers could not go any further, he agreed and we, the police, turned the marchers around by circling them around a block then back toward the viaduct. The injured marchers you saw had been at the front of the line and were the first to return to the viaduct. On all previous nights the marches had stopped on the north side of the viaduct without crossing. There were rumors that anti-protesters were planning to trap the marchers on the viaduct by following them from the north side and blocking them on the south side but that never happened. That night was the first and last time during the entire period of open housing demonstrations in Milwaukee, however, that the marchers actually crossed the viaduct. After that night the marchers redirected their marches to the near east side of Milwaukee and toward Capitol Dr. until the demonstrations ended.
Robert W says
Father Michael neuberger was there too
emanuel zepnick says
I want to Wish all the Dads in milwaukee a Happy and a healthy fathers Day. I enjoyed reading the various articles on the open housing Marched lead by the late Father Gropi . Fifty years later much more pressing problems are facing not only the Black community but the white areas ravaged by Deindustrilazion . In June 2017 the problems are worse than 50 years ago . Crime , Health , Poor Schools in fracture and declining of good safe middle Calss communities . Don’t Panick , there is hope , the sherman park and adjacent West Side communities have a little hope . Milwaukee has its assets not to big and not too small and a Excellent location . A strong leader a 2017 Father James grope type can’t do it alone he needs cooperation and help . Most pressing problems Schools and public Safety and you can include the economy and jobs . Without a Anti Crime Strategy and a plan to fix milwaukes schools milwaukee will continue to DEPOPULATE and Milwaukee will be a ghost town . Fellow Milwaukee’s you future is at stake . Get to work and I will guide milwaukee to the promised land but can’t do it alone . Teamwork
Dr. Jack Porter says
Right on, Mr. Zepnick
Dr. Jack Porter, Newton, Mass. former Haambee and Sherman Park resident–10th and Garfield; and 50th and Locust.