Leaders Convey Messages of Hope and Racial Equality in Milwaukee

Jackie Robinson

In 1947 Jack Roosevelt Robinson became the first Black Major League baseball player when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. At the end of 10 years as a Dodger, Robinson, posted a .311 batting average and earned a place in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After baseball, Robinson founded a Harlem-based bank to finance housing for low-income people. In 1966, the grey-haired president of New York City’s Freedom National Bank spoke to 500 people at the annual Milwaukee Boy’s Club awards ceremony. Robinson stressed the need for Blacks and the police department to put aside their mutual dislike and find ways to work together. “I humbly submit that we who have had opportunities must help get others out of poverty and low-income situations,” he said. Later when asked if he’d become the Dodgers’ general manager, Robinson said, “I have hypertension and diabetes. There isn’t enough money to get me back into baseball.l”

John Howard Griffin

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John Howard Griffin - 1964 Ad

An advertisement for a screening of the film "Black Like Me" based on John Howard Griffin's book

In 1959, journalist John Howard Griffin subjected himself to a chemical regimen that darkened his skin until he looked like a Black man. Griffin planned to spend six weeks in the Deep South on the other side of the color line. His book, Black Like Me, exposed the many challenges that Black people faced finding food, shelter and toilets. Griffin also described the hatred he felt from white shop clerks, ticket sellers, bus drivers, and others in the Jim Crow south.

Griffin came to Milwaukee and spoke of his experiences at the Garfield theater. Days before the event, the Citizens for Moral Responsibility pronounced Black Like Me to be vulgar and obscene. They organized a protest to squelch Griffin’s talk, saying that radical groups like the Ku Klux Klan would use violence to prevent people from attending. Griffin called the protesters’ claims ridiculous and addressed 1,500 people who were eager to hear his stories. Donations collected at the event totaled about $800, and the spokesman for a Catholic charity group said Griffin wanted the money to be used to help needy families.

James Weldon Johnson

Poet, diplomat, and journalist James Weldon Johnson spoke here in 1933 to discuss The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. The book was published anonymously to protect Johnson from racial retaliation. Johnson was a distinguished lawyer and diplomat who served as executive secretary at the NAACP. Johnson wrote the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a quintessential Black anthem. With his brother, Rosamund. he wrote more than 200 songs for Broadway shows. In his address here, Johnson acknowledged the need for Black people to get the same education as whites. He also encouraged Black artists to produce great literature and works of art to prove their intellect and creativity were equal to those of whites.

Ardie Halyard

When Ardie and Wilbur Halyard came to Milwaukee in 1923, they immediately saw ways to improve living conditions and create financial stability for the residents of Bronzeville. White realtors worked with each other to keep Black families confined to low-income neighborhoods. Even worse, an unscrupulous gambler named John L. Slaughter established saloons and gambling dens along West Wells Street between Third and Seventh Streets. Slaughter was Milwaukee’s first Black millionaire who made his fortune on the backs of working people living paycheck to paycheck. Undaunted, the Halyards opened the Columbia Savings and Loan in the back room of a funeral parlor. “The bank was founded with more faith than finance” Ardie Halyard said.

People in the community pulled their savings from white-owned banks and deposited them with Columbia. By the time of Wilbur’s death in 1963, the little saving and loan had assets of $3 million.

In the 1960s, the I-43 freeway project in the 1960s freeway ran through the middle of the Brownsville business district and destroyed many Black-owned businesses and a thriving entertainment district. More than 20,000 people were affected by the destruction of homes, and the Black housing shortage became even worse. Ardie Halyard and her team used the $3 million in her bank to finance 35 new homes in the area. “We showed the City of Milwaukee that blacks could be as financially responsible as anyone else,” Ardie said.

Henry Ward Beecher

With the newspapers dominated by news of the Civil War, it was easy to have the nation’s most prominent abolitionist speak to the citizens of Milwaukee. Henry Ward Beecher was an outspoken clergyman and social reformer who brought his crusade against slavery to every place he spoke. Beecher’s sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, shared his views and became famous worldwide for her abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Beecher was already an in-demand orator on the lecture circuit for his novel style using humor, dialects, and slang. Although the site of his address is unknown, it’s likely Beecher appeared at Metropolitan Hall in 1864, a theatrical venue large enough to hold several hundred people.

After the war, Beecher stressed the need to acknowledge women's suffrage and the work for the reduction of alcohol consumption. He included Darwin's theory of evolution in his speeches, stating that it was not incompatible with Christian beliefs.

Miriam Makeba

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Miriam Makeba - Music Under the Starts (1968)

An advertisement for one of Miriam Makeba's concerts in 1968

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Miriam Makeba - 1964 performance at The Oriental

An advertisement for a 1964 performance by Miriam Makeba at The Oriental Theatre

The popular South African folk singer and social reformer appeared on the music scene in 1959 performing a mixture of jazz, traditional African melodies, and Western popular music. Makeba made her first visit to in 1962. Three years later, concert reviewers suggested her political views were driving all but her most die-hard fans away. Makeba testified against the South African government at the United Nations and became involved in the civil rights movement. She married Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Black Panther Party, in 1968, and consequently lost even more support among white Americans. Makeba was exiled for 30 years, returning to the US at the beginning of the 21st century. Upon her death in 2008, former South African President Nelson Mandela said, “her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us.”

Charles “Sonny” Liston

“Find something you love and follow that dream”, said Charles Liston, “Stay close to the church and pray. Listen to your parents and make good decisions.”

No one was more surprised than the kids at Children’s Hospital when the World Heavyweight Boxing champ showed up in December 1962. His visit was unannounced, and totally unexpected. There were no reporters or TV cameras to capture the event because the press hadn’t been tipped off. Liston went from ward to ward, visiting all the children and signing autographs for them. He brought $500 worth of toys with him and every child got one. Afterward Liston went to the Milwaukee County Orphan’s Home and did the same thing. Sonny Liston loved kids and knew what they needed, having once walked in their shoes.

Boxing champions Sugar Ray Robinson and Jersey Joe Walcott also brought their messages to Milwaukee teens in the 1950s. Robinson spoke at the Auditorium in 1952 and Walcott attended the 1956 Milwaukee Metropolitan Youth Rally. “Help your family. Stay close to the church. Don’t drop out of school,” Walcott said. “Become a soldier. Learn a trade or vocation”.