Milwaukee PBS Specials

(bright music) (relaxed guitar music) (relaxed guitar music continues) - Hello everyone, I'm Earl Arms.

Welcome to a special edition of "Black Nouveau."

Between 1916 and 1970, almost six million African Americans living in the South uprooted their families to migrate to cities in the West and North.

They came seeking the promise of a better life, escape from racial violence, better jobs, higher wages and better educational opportunities.

Milwaukee and Wisconsin was late to feel that shift though.

Just before World War II, Milwaukee's Black population totaled about 1.5%.

By 1950, that number had increased to 3.5%, around 22,000 people.

By 1970, that number had ballooned to 103,000 people and by the year 2000, Milwaukee's Black population exceeded 200,000 people.

Tonight, we bring you stories from six families who came here for different reasons but now call Milwaukee Home.

(soft guitar music) Ron Hobson is a first generation Milwaukeean.

His mother was born in Arkansas and his father born in Alabama.

Both were sent by their families to Milwaukee to escape the worst of what the South offered.

- My mother came here from Arkansas and my grandmother moved here because first, she moved here with my auntie, excuse me, my aunt's sis, which is my grand aunt.

She moved here with her because there was a lot of rape going on.

So she thought "Uh-uh" and so she moved her after awhile to Milwaukee.

They all came to Milwaukee.

- [Earl] Ron's father was a Navy veteran of the Second World War.

He beat two white men who attempted to assault him for wearing his military uniform.

Ron's grandfather heard about the situation.

- He's there drinking a drink and all of a sudden, this guy slams through the door and says "Man, some N just beat up two white boys."

My granddaddy said, he shook his head and said "Well, they gonna kill that nigga."

And somebody asked "Who did it, who was it?"

"They say it's some crazy dude called Crazy Joe."

My grandfather drank his drink down, went looking for my uncle so he could get a car, got a car and they got they shotguns and went to my dad, tried to force him to come to Milwaukee and after awhile, he finally gave in.

But that's why he came, basically.

That and employment was a lot better.

The community of Blacks were great.

Whites lived there, Blacks lived there.

The South was integrated, as they used to say but we never went back there.

My father never wanted to go back.

- [Earl] Ron's parents met and married in Milwaukee, where they raised a family that included six children.

- My father worked at A.O.

Smith.

My mother, she worked here and there as a RN or a CNA or, you know?

And you ever watch Chris Rock?

It was kind of like that.

My father was kinda like that big built guy and the mother was a very pretty woman who worked when she worked and would always say to people, "I ain't gotta work."

That was kind of her pride, you know?

So she would work and then not work and work and not work.

My father did 30, maybe 33 years for A.O.

Smith.

- [Earl] He graduated from North Division High School and worked a variety of jobs.

- The first job, real job I got was working for the Milwaukee Railroad.

I worked there for 10 years, nine years, nine years, seven months, something like that and that was a great job.

Then I left there and went to General Motors, worked for General Motors.

Loved that, easy work and then I went from there to selling cars at Andrew Chevrolet for 20 years, well, 18.

- [Earl] Ron married twice and had two children.

(relaxed guitar music) Janie Saffold was the youngest of nine children in her family from Fairhope, Alabama.

- My daddy was a carpenter, my mother did day work.

So we had food.

We never went hungry.

We had plenty of food.

We had chickens and had vegetables in the yard, in the garden and I remember we always had one cow, her name was Daisy, and just for milk and one horse and we had chickens.

One pig every year, killed the pig for meat.

- [Earl] As the family in Alabama got older and began to leave, Janie agreed to visit some relatives in Milwaukee.

That was in 1957.

- I have a cousin next door.

She had married and came to Milwaukee, two cousins and Margie wanted to come to Milwaukee.

So she talked me into coming and I didn't wanna come.

I didn't come here to stay, I came for a visit but when time to go back home, Marge didn't go and I knew when I got back home, it would only be me.

So I just stayed and in '59, I got married.

So started having babies.

So I met my husband, he was from Mississippi.

So when we had children, the first year, 1960, my oldest child was born.

For five years, I had five babies.

So I didn't work outside the home.

It was cheaper for me to stay home and take care of my children.

My husband didn't mind working.

He was from a large family, so he knew how to work.

He would work two and three jobs, never complained and took care of us and I thank God for him.

My husband was a truck driver but after we got married, he worked at County, at the mental institution.

He worked there for 'til he retired for 36 years.

He died in 2001.

(relaxed guitar music) (upbeat guitar music) (mid tempo drumbeat) Milwaukee was all right.

When I came to Milwaukee right away, because I was raised in a church and when I came to Milwaukee, I found the church.

A lot more peoples from Alabama had came.

So we went to the same church that they went to and we would go to church on Sundays and during the week.

Milwaukee was, I got used to it, being a big city and everything but I enjoyed it.

- [Earl] Today, her family and church keep her busy and traveling.

- I went to Nigeria.

We had a convocation in Nigeria last September.

I wanted to go but at my age, I was telling my children, I said "I would like to go to Nigeria with the group."

It was about 35 of us went.

We stayed a week doing mission work.

(relaxed tempo rock music) - [Earl] The late Dr. James Cameron is the founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum.

Most Milwaukeeans know that Dr. Cameron is the only known survivor of a lynching but few know that he was born in La Crosse.

His son Virgil was born in Detroit and migrated to Milwaukee with his family some years after that incident.

- Three of us were born in Detroit.

My dad was from Indiana, that's where he lived.

So when grandma became ill, we moved back to Indiana and we lived there for quite awhile.

And dad was involved with the NAACP, started the Indiana, it was about three chapters and he got a lot of feedback from people that didn't agree with him and I recall one day, there was a lot of commotion outside and my father grabbed his rifle and went out on the porch and my brother and I went out with him.

We didn't realize what was going on and there was a lot of shouting back and forth and whatever.

Well anyway, they dispersed and went back in the house and a few days later, my dad, he left and he made the decision that we were gonna move to Canada because he was fed up with the stuff that was going on in America.

On the way to Canada, he stopped in Milwaukee and got a job and it was just absolutely delightful.

A big change from Indiana.

They brought the family up and we've been here since 1950.

Dad flourished when he came to Milwaukee.

He got involved with the NAACP here in Milwaukee also and he got to travel.

Him and mom got to travel all over the country, all over the world and he stopped in Jerusalem and went to the Jewish Holocaust Museum and Dad said it just took him aback to see the atrocities that occurred.

But he had an idea.

He told Mom, "We need one of these in Milwaukee."

When he got back to Milwaukee, he started the journey to open up America's Black Holocaust Museum and we were successful in opening it and it's doing quite well right now.

- [Earl] Virgil is a graduate of West Division High School.

- I joined the Marine Corps after that.

I went to college for a year, then I joined the Marine Corps and got out the Marine Corps and went back to school.

Ended up working for Milwaukee County along with the other jobs I had along the way.

I opened up a drugstore also called Central City Drugs, the first Black drugstore in Wisconsin.

We were open on 7th and Walnut in the Black shopping center.

We were open for like three years and we had to close because the funding dried up.

- [Earl] He married a woman from Alabama whose family had also migrated to Milwaukee.

They've been married for 58 years, have two children and five grandchildren.

He has fond memories of Bronzeville.

- When we first moved here from Indiana, we moved on 6th and Vine, 620 West Vine and on Walnut Street, that was the main drag where they had nightclubs and all that.

There was a lot of activity going on and I'm a 10-year-old kid and I'm wondering, "Wow, I've never seen anything like this before."

And it was just amazing.

Black shops, Black stores, it was just flourishing and then King and 3rd Street, that was the other area where we had shops, Gimbels, Schuster's, all the big department stores.

It was just flourishing and then it dried up for whatever reason.

But now we're coming back.

(upbeat piano music) - [Earl] Venora and Lafayette McKinney met while attending college in Oklahoma.

They've been married for 65 years.

- I grew up in Chickasha, Oklahoma which is about 90 miles from Langston where we went to school and that's where we met and of course I graduated in four years.

But before I graduated, I had received a three-year fellowship, US government fellowship to attend graduate school.

So I went to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to do graduate work and she went to Hugo, Oklahoma to start her teaching career.

But she stayed there until December and that's when we got married December 24th with the music during the break (laughs) in 1959.

- [Earl] He was recruited from grad school to work at Pabst Beer in Milwaukee.

- I was the assistant controller.

My degree was in, it's an MBA but I had a major in business, I mean accounting.

So I was an accountant at Pabst and I was later moved up to administration, in charge of their administration department until retirement really.

- [Earl] They both had full careers.

- I worked for Milwaukee Public Schools for one semester at Lincoln but my heart was with libraries.

That's where I had gotten, begun my training and had more experience and when the job opening came at the Milwaukee Public Library, I left the school system and went to Milwaukee Public then.

I hadn't finished my degree when we were at Illinois and one day, one of the staff members said to me, "McKinney, when are you gonna finish your degree?"

And I said "Hmm, I don't think I'd like to do it at UWM because we're pretty young and it's not accredited yet."

Which means if you go somewhere else to work, you've got an unaccredited degree.

So I said "But I'd like to go back to the University of Illinois where I started and I almost finished."

And she said "Hmm, there are some fellowships but the deadline is tomorrow, if you'll fill out the application."

Mind you, I had a husband and a little girl at home (laughs) and she said "I'll drive it there 'cause you'd be a good candidate I believe if you get your application in."

And so that's what we did and I went back to the University of Illinois for that year.

- [Earl] They had two children and grandchildren and are still active in the community.

- I sang with a group for fun and I like to travel.

So we would go on trips.

I think I prefer that more than most anything.

I'm not athletic.

The only bad grade I ever made in my whole life was in gym.

(laughs) So athletics, I ask him, "What's the score for the Packers tonight?"

And that's how I get my athletic information.

I think for people who enjoy it, it's fun but that's not my thing.

I love going to the theater and I like concerts and that's what I like to do for fun and guess who gets dragged along?

(laughs) - With my job at Pabst, I was invited to serve on several state and local organizations.

I served with the state and I was appointed to serve on MATC's board for accounting services and I have served on the Urban League board for several years.

- [Earl] They're members of the oldest African American Baptist church in the state.

- As part of our church, we developed some elderly housing for the community in our area and after a few years on the board, we had a change in leadership and I was finally moved up to being the chairman of the board.

We enjoyed taking care of senior citizens and providing for senior citizens and at least the best part is making a safe, affordable housing place for those cities, I mean seniors.

(relaxed guitar music) - [Earl] Lennie Mosley marched with Father James Groppi in the Deep South and across the 16th Street Bridge in Milwaukee.

Meet Mississippian Lennie Mosley.

- My intentions, born and raised in Mississippi and graduating from high school, I wanted to come.

My original plan was to come to Chicago and live but I got to Chicago and I hated it.

(chuckles) I got there in June of 1963.

September of 1963, I came to Milwaukee to visit, I loved it.

I went back to Chicago, got my belongings and came here and I've been here ever since.

Never hesitated to go back home once.

Every year, two or three times a year, I go back home.

I'm from Yazoo County, born and raised in Yazoo County.

I'm one of 11 kids.

My grandfather came to Mississippi in 1907 or before that.

He bought 132 acres of land and my question growing up, "How could Papa own all of this land being an African American in Yazoo County, Mississippi, 132 acres of land?"

And we still have that land with 20 acres added to that.

- [Earl] She received her business degree from what would become MATC and in a few years, other family members had moved to Milwaukee as well.

- In Milwaukee, there was opportunities with all the factories, okay?

You had Rexnord, Harnischfeger, Allen-Bradley, Allentown, American Motors, General Motors.

We had so many, all of the breweries, A.O.

Smith being number one and at one time, hired over 7,000 employees at one time with the three shifts going and people found jobs.

They were living well, moving to the suburbs, making good money, kids off to college and traveling.

On the planes back in the day, we wore high-heeled shoes and three-piece suits, okay?

(laughs) We had to dress up and pretty soon as time progressed, when you're talking about the migration from 1910 up through the 70s, people had a way to make a good living, a great living.

- [Earl] She served for awhile as secretary to lawyer and activist Lloyd Barbee.

Eventually, she started her own business.

- I went and worked for the VA.

I stayed at the VA for nine months and I left, I couldn't take it.

(laughs) I admire people in the medical field.

They endure a lot every day and at 19 when I worked for them, I could not take the death, of seeing some of our military people die and suffer.

So I left and came out and I went to the Wisconsin Gas Company.

I stayed there 13 years and I decided I wanted to do something on my own.

So I went to Nail Tech Academy, got my license to become a nail tech.

In 1990, I opened my nail salon in Whitefish Bay, 117 West Silver Spring.

After that, I grew so fast in one year, I left there and I moved to 6800 North Green Bay Avenue, Perfect Nails.

I opened the Perfect Nail Salon there and a boutique and I stayed there from '91 to 2005 and I came to Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, 1752 North King Drive.

- [Earl] She also found time to marry and raise a family.

- I came here, as I said, in September 1963 and my cousin's husband had a great friend of his, they'd been knowing each other for many years and he came by to visit one day with his blue blazer and his khaki pants on from Marquette University and I said "Ooh, Sookie."

(giggles) So his name was Robert.

Robert Mosley, a wonderful man and we dated.

One day, he came by and asked me if I'd like to go for a walk and that walk turned into 57 years of life together.

So I'm very proud to say that he was a great husband, a father, most of all, a friend.

We started off being friends.

Two children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

So that was my life with Bob and he passed two years ago and I miss him immensely.

(soft guitar music) (up tempo drumbeat) - [Earl] Kitonga Alexander is a history professor.

His father moved to Milwaukee in 1971 and Kitonga was born in 1979.

He's a married father with five children.

- My father, him and my mother were married and he moved to Milwaukee for opportunity, right?

To seek out opportunity I should say, right?

And he did it.

He made the trek to Milwaukee and then by '73, '74, my mother was in this house here.

- [Earl] But the industrial boom was beginning to end.

- By the time I was born, Milwaukee as this industrial town of course looked a lot different than it did when of course my great uncle came and even when my father came, it looked different.

He came in '71, so that was when it actually started to shift.

The narrative of gainful employment and industry started to look different around the time my father came.

So by the time I come of age, what was of the past, this industrial city with gainful employment, it looked totally different to me.

I was fortunate enough to be in a community of individuals who were able to take advantage of that industrial era, as I like to call it and they purchased homes in this area, which I think was called and still is I think Old North Milwaukee.

My parents were one of the first African American parents to actually purchase a home in the area and after them, it started to be populated by African Americans.

By the time I come of age, it's an African American community, a community filled with people who had that industrial employment.

So I got to see this sense of community as a child growing up.

- [Earl] We asked him what historians generally get wrong about the Great Migration.

- One thing I think that the scholars may get wrong is to think that African Americans in general have been in motion since they have been allowed to be in motion.

So the first thing that happens in 1865 when individuals are, of course slavery ends for the most part legally.

Individuals leave plantations and start to seek out their family.

So Milwaukee, even Chicago, which really Milwaukee is the second part of the migration.

I like to divide the migration up in like two parts.

The first part around the 1920s but then the second part around the 1940s, really centered around both World Wars.

I generally do that though.

I don't like to say that is what sparked it because of what I just said.

African Americans have always been in motion and so those areas, of course, we do see an increase but we shouldn't single out those eras as the specific reasons that African Americans are in motion 'cause they have never stopped being in motion.

Even when we look at my story and we talk about the migration to Milwaukee and then I can talk about the migration out of Milwaukee, it just continues with the narrative of us being in motion.

Probably I would argue trying to seek out that footing that allows us to have institutional control and of course, employment is one institution.

We also have education and other institutions and so people are in motion trying to seek out the best opportunity for themselves.

- There are still many more migration stories to come, from African Americans and from others seeking a better place to live.

We hope to bring you more of these stories in the future.

For "Black Nouveau," I'm Earl Arms.

Thanks for watching.

(relaxed guitar music) (relaxed guitar music continues)