Ten years after the Sherman Park uprising, many of the economic conditions residents and activists pointed to as problematic – even dangerous – in 2016 still remain, according to U.S. Census Bureau and local data analyzed by NNS.
Uprising in Sherman Park:
10 years later
Many residents at the time said the unrest on Aug. 13, 2016, was about more than the fatal police shooting of Sylville Smith by a Milwaukee police officer. They pointed to longstanding poverty, decades of disinvestment and a lack of opportunity as some of the conditions that fueled the uprising.
Today, even as some measures of economic progress have improved, many of those same challenges are still present in the Sherman Park neighborhood.
“Some good changes have happened,” said Vaun Mayes, a community organizer and one of the city’s violence interrupters. “But for the most part, Sherman Park is still basically the same and has the same general issues.”
What we looked at
To examine how Sherman Park has changed since the uprising, NNS analyzed U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey five-year estimates, comparing the 2016 and 2024 datasets, the most recent five-year data.
Because the Census Bureau does not define Sherman Park as a neighborhood, NNS approximated the neighborhood using census tracts and a city neighborhood map.
NNS examined:
- Population
- Race and ethnicity
- Poverty
- Employment
- Educational attainment
- Median household income
- Homeownership
- Housing vacancy
- Median gross rent
The comparison between indicators then and now shows a mixed picture.
Taken together, the findings suggest that although some measures associated with upward economic mobility improved, many of the economic outcomes often associated with those indicators, including higher incomes and greater housing stability, did not.
For example, the share of adults age 25 and older holding at least a bachelor’s degree increased from 7.2% to 8.9%, and the unemployment rate declined from 20.1% to 15.8%. However, poverty rose across every age group at the same time.
Poverty increased most among elderly residents, increasing from 15.9% in 2016 to 33.0% in 2024.
Similarly, median household income, adjusted for inflation, and homeownership declined: Roughly seven in 10 occupied housing units were renter-occupied in 2024, compared with roughly two-thirds in 2016.
Although incomes declined, the average cost of rent, adjusted for inflation, increased from $1,126 to $1,196. Population also declined in the area since 2016.
The neighborhood remained overwhelmingly Black, though it became slightly more racially diverse.
Public safety
Public safety trends also show a mixed bag.
Through Aug. 10, Milwaukee police recorded 97 aggravated assaults, 12 nonfatal shootings and three homicides in Sherman Park this year. All three types of crimes were up from the same point last year when police recorded 67 aggravated assaults, five nonfatal shootings and two homicides in that time span.
At the same time, robberies, thefts and carjackings were all below last year’s levels.
Specific types of violence in Sherman Park have fluctuated over the course of the past 10 years, according to data from the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission.
The neighborhood recorded 35 shooting victims in 2016, including homicides and nonfatal shootings. That number rose to 47 in 2017 – the year following the uprising.
The number of homicide and nonfatal shooting victims have fluctuated over the decade, rising sharply during the pandemic years before falling to 17 in 2024.
ShotSpotter data from MPD gives a sense of the frequency of gun shots throughout the neighborhood over the past few years.
Sherman Park accounted for roughly 7% of gunfire calls citywide between 2021 and 2025.
Community response
“There’s still good people there that are working to improve things that are happening on the ground in that neighborhood,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson said.
Johnson pointed to the Sherman Park Community Association; Sherman Phoenix, a marketplace built on the grounds of a bank that was set ablaze during the unrest; the neighborhood’s new Business Improvement District; and his administration’s Year of Housing initiative as examples of continued investment in the neighborhood.
Karin Tyler, executive director of the city’s Department of Community Wellness and Safety, said the Sherman Park uprising was a defining moment for Milwaukee, one that exposed deep challenges but also sparked action, resilience and a stronger commitment to community-led public safety.
From that moment came critical investments, she said, including Milwaukee’s Blueprint for Peace and Program the Parks, which created safe spaces and positive opportunities for young people.
“Sherman Park also has one of the strongest networks of block captains through the Alert Neighbor Program, a reflection of residents taking ownership of the safety and strength of their neighborhood,” Tyler said. “Local businesses throughout Sherman Park and the surrounding area have stepped up as well, investing in and working alongside the community.”
Johnson said that Black homeownership has improved citywide, though those gains haven’t appeared yet in the Sherman Park data analyzed by NNS.
Despite the challenges, Mayes has also seen signs of progress.
“SPCA (Sherman Park Community Association) has become a stronger and more vocal and invested organization for the area and have taken up and advocated for more issues,” he said.
“But has housing changed? Has job access changed? Quality of life?” he asked.
Mayes said he’s also noticed a gap between investment and outcomes in youth services.
“Investment and grants focused on issues of youth have been prioritized. However, the impact from those investments could be more impactful and intentional,” he said.
Work to be done
While citing progress, Johnson also acknowledged work that still needs to occur in the neighborhood, especially given its recent past.
“Certainly, there are challenges. There can be lagging things, especially when something traumatic like that happens,” Johnson said. “It is like a bomb going off in a place like that.”
Johnson said the city needs to do more work on housing in Sherman Park.
He said his administration’s plans to focus on housing this year will eventually impact neighborhoods such as Sherman Park.
Though the changes will take time, Johnson said, some of the issues that have plagued Sherman Park and other neighborhoods for years have historic roots. He pointed to decades of deindustrialization that continues to affect Milwaukee.
“What it did is leave cities, communities like Milwaukee and the Upper Midwest … holding the bag, looking around like, ‘Where are the opportunities?’” he said. “That is not a City of Milwaukee issue, it’s more of a national and international sort of issue.”
Milwaukee Public Schools also recognizes the deep pain that sparked the unrest in Sherman Park, said Stephen Davis, the district’s media relations manager. He stressed the district’s commitment to serving students and families across every neighborhood in Milwaukee.
“Specifically, we are actively directing investments toward schools in historically disinvested communities,” Davis said, citing MPS’ investment of nearly $13 million in four schools on the North Side as well as a new districtwide literacy plan to address the “multigenerational literacy crisis.”
The Milwaukee Police Department stressed its commitment to Sherman Park and other communities as well.
The department remains committed to strengthening trust and partnership, a spokesperson for the department said.
“We continue to enhance police-community relations and ensure our training, policies and risk-management practices align with nationally recognized best standards,” the spokesperson said.
Mayes said he’s seen some fruit of efforts to improve police-community relations, describing the relationship as “leaps better than back then.”
The city’s formal body that pays close attention to how the police and community are relating to each other is the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission.
“The (Fire and Police Commission) is planning some more meetings out in the community, which is exciting,” said Commissioner Krissie Fung.
“I’m also looking forward to continuing to improve the complaint process with the new investigator that is coming on board,” she said.
Fung acknowledged that the commission’s role in overseeing the Police Department has changed significantly over the past decade, particularly following the passage of Act 12, which shifted some crucial authority of the commission to the police chief.
At the time, both the chair and vice chair of the commission resigned in protest.
“Act 12 was a blow to the whole city,” Amanda Avalos, the commission’s former vice chair, previously told NNS. “It took away something that was a really positive thing that the city had. … It was a really unique form of community power.”
Fung said one high point for transparency was the adoption of Standard Operating Procedure 575 governing the public release of police video.
Police video of Sylville Smith’s shooting death wasn’t released until June 2017, when it was shown during the murder trial of Milwaukee Police Officer Dominique Heaggan-Brown. He was eventually acquitted of Smith’s killing but sentenced to prison on an unrelated sexual assault charge.
Why these metrics?
The symptoms residents said helped give rise to the unrest in 2016 reflected what researchers describe as the social determinants of health — the economic and social conditions that shape people’s health and quality of life.
Those conditions include employment, education, income, housing stability and neighborhood conditions.
“Limited access to stable employment, economic opportunity and resources can contribute to the conditions that increase the risk of violence,” Tyler said. “Public safety cannot be separated from economic stability and opportunity.”
Tyler said improving conditions means investing in local leaders like Vaun Mayes and programs that support youth engagement, violence prevention, economic opportunity and community-centered public safety.
Today, many Milwaukee leaders continue to describe violence prevention in those terms.
Michael Levas, a specialist in pediatrics and emergency medicine at Children’s Wisconsin, says that while parenting plays an important role in preventing violence, parents also need stable housing, economic opportunity and community support to help children succeed.
In other words, economic conditions can increase the risk factors associated with violence.
Mayes said the data trends in Sherman Park since the uprising acknowledged the good, bad and yet to come:
“We have some great things and progress, yet there is still much work left to do.”
Paul Kiefer of Wisconsin Watch contributed to this report.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
