Here & Now

Groundbreaking Legacy Of Vel Phillips

Frederica Freyberg:

Finally tonight, the passing of a Wisconsin legend. Civil rights leader, judge and former Wisconsin Secretary of State Vel Phillips died this week at the age of 94. Phillips was a political trailblazer and as this excerpt from a Wisconsin Public Television documentary on her life shows, there were a lot of firsts in those 94 years.

Female Narrator:

On an overcast day in August, 1967, 200 men, women and children marched across the 16th Street viaduct in Milwaukee. On the other side of the bridge, thousands of white residents were waiting. They shouted racist taunts, hurled firecrackers, rocks and bodily fluids. Although they were battered and scared, the activists marched again the next night, and the next, and the next. The marchers demanded what they believed was a basic right: the freedom to live in any neighborhood regardless of the color of your skin. They called it open housing. The public struggle for open housing in Milwaukee had started five years earlier, when one woman decided it was time for a change.

Vel Phillips:

You are aware, gentlemen, that the eyes of the nation, indeed the eyes of the world are upon Milwaukee.

Female Narrator:

Her name was Vel Phillips.

Heidi Johnson:

It was like this is my work.

Man:

She did things that were unheard of for her time.

Female Narrator:

Vel Phillips was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School, the first African-American and first female alderman in Milwaukee, the first African-American judge in Wisconsin, the first African-American and first female to be elected to statewide executive office in Wisconsin or anywhere in the United States.

Vel Phillips:

My mother would always tell us, if you really want it, don’t dream small dreams. Dream big dreams.

Frederica Freyberg:

Vel Phillips died Tuesday. She was 94. You just saw an excerpt from the WPT documentary “Vel Phillips: Dream Big Dreams.” You can watch the entire documentary online at wpt.org and on Monday, April 23rd, the film will be shown on Wisconsin Public Television at 9:00 p.m.