Photo by Tom Jenz
Milwaukee Bronzeville sign
In the Shepherd Express September magazine, veteran Black journalist Dick Carter wrote, “What really sticks in my mind after returning to my home in New York is the disappearance of the Black middle-class near North Side neighborhoods and shopping areas of my Milwaukee youth.” Carter was recalling his good times in 1950s Milwaukee’s Bronzeville. Back then, Bronzeville was fully segregated but also productive and vital to the Black culture and community. It still is. Vital to the community, but still segregated, except for a small percentage of residents who are white.
How do you define Bronzeville? I like to refer to Bronzeville as the Near North Side bordering Highway 43 to the west, Martin Luther King Drive to the east. But Bronzeville is more than a community of neighborhoods, more than boundaries defined by streets. Bronzeville shines as an enclave of Black culture. If Bronzeville is an independent art film, then the surrounding sprawl is a Hollywood studio movie.
The Milwaukee City Development Commissioner Lafayette Crump told me, “When you’re in the heart of Bronzeville, some folks might feel like it’s an entirely different world, but it’s right there, connected to Downtown by line-of-sight. And we need to find ways to connect more than by just line-of-sight, by action, by connecting, by activating spaces, by making people feel welcome and comfortable.”
The artery of today’s Bronzeville is Martin Luther King Drive whose beating heart resides in a gleaming new building on 401 W. North Avenue, America’s Black Holocaust Museum (ABHM). It is situated at the nexus of three Northside Black neighborhoods. If you visit America’s Black Holocaust Museum, you will discover exhibit stories of the harmful legacies of slavery and Jim Crow in America. You will also be uplifted because the museum promotes racial repair, reconciliation, and healing. But it is difficult to achieve racial repair and reconciliation when groups of residents remain isolated from each other by skin color. There had always been pride in being white, but only in the last couple generations has pride in being Black become prevalent.
Since the days of Dick Carter’s mid-20th century youth, Bronzeville has experienced cultural and economic deterioration. The 1960s construction of the Highway 43 freeway sliced heartbreak through the North Side Black neighborhoods. Building the freeway led to the demolition of roughly 17,000 homes and close to 1,000 businesses. The landmark Black Milwaukee Lincoln High School was also a victim. The July 1967 Milwaukee riot was one of 159 race riots that swept cities in the United States during that explosive summer. When the Milwaukee police moved in, unrest escalated into full-fledged rioting with looting, arson and destruction. Over the next two generations, a general malaise settled in.
But Bronzeville is making a comeback.
Culture and Arts
On Sunday, August 7, I visited the Bronzeville Cultural & Arts Festival on North Avenue and talked to Black citizens. A society that remembers its past can shape a better future, ideally a nation undivided by race where every person matters equally. Interacting with Bronzeville festival goers, I did get a sense that every person matters equally, but there were few white persons around to matter. The festival grounds were lined with exhibits, enthusiastic advocates staffing the tables. At either end of the four-block stretch sat performance stages. If you wanted to find friendly people, you would walk these streets on this joyful day.
One of the people I spoke to was Milwaukee Black developer Deshea Agee. The eldest of six children, Deshea grew up near North 14th and West Burleigh. He graduated from Marquette High School and earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from Marquette University before later launching a career in real estate development. In 2016, he joined the historic ML King Drive BID District 8 as executive director. He worked for five and a half years to bring in stores and entrepreneurs and attract patrons and developers. He helped attract 20 new minority-owned businesses and fostered major rehab developments such as the Thrive on King project and the Bader Philanthropies headquarters.
Deshea said, “I saw a significant collaboration between business and city to locate businesses and organizations on Dr. King Drive. As a result, the residents began socializing around Bronzeville and King Drive. In addition, the various media outlets took an interest in what we were doing. My goal was to transform that corridor into what Dr. King would have wanted, namely bringing people together. King Drive is now designated as a National Main Street. The African American Chamber of Commerce is now headquartered in Bronzeville, also the Veterans Affair Office, and the Black Holocaust Museum. And there are stores and restaurants: Sam’s Jazz Cafe, PepperPot Catering, Maranta Plant Shop, Dead Bird Brewing, the Bronzeville Collective MKE and the social gathering spot, Gee’s Clippers Barbershop.”
Success Stories
I told Deshea Agee I thought the most impressive renovation is the $100 million Thrive on King facility rehabbed out of the old four-story Gimbels & Schuster’s Building that consumes nearly a whole block. It will house the Medical College and the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, also apartments, a childcare facility and a restaurant. I mentioned other success stories in the ML King Drive area: Hope Christian School, King Hall, Solomon Temple, the Skybox Sports Bar, Victoria’s Beauty Supply, and Rose Park for recreation and family gatherings. Pete’s Fruit Market is soon to open on the corner of North and ML King. And just off King Drive on Locust sits the District 5 Police Building.
“It’s been a long journey because there had been a lot of blight with deserted buildings and empty lots,” he said. He expanded, “I saw this challenge as a tale of three nodes from south to north on King Drive: first, McKinley to North Avenue, second, North Avenue to Locust, third, Locust to Capitol Drive. We’ve done pretty well developing the first node. Now we are seeing more development heading north. King Drive is the front door to the neighborhoods, Harambee, Halyard Park, Brewer’s Hill, and Haymarket Square. A thriving community has a collaborative culture, all residents coming together, and I tried to advance that idea in Bronzeville.”
Deshea was doing sound checks on the main stage. I left him to his work, and I moved on down the busy block and ran into District 6 Alderperson Milele Coggs who represents the surrounding neighborhoods. She told me, “We have the best King Drive in the nation, and there are a lot of King Drives in urban areas. In Bronzeville, we are re-emerging as an African American culture. Our biggest success is the $100 million Thrive on King development in the old Gimbels building not far from here.”
I said that I had recently done a story on Kevin Newell whose Royal Capital Development is bringing that historic building back to life. “I think it will be a landmark on King Drive. Very important addition to Bronzeville,” she said, adding, “Re-emergence takes time, but if you go down ML King Drive, you will see all the new stores, businesses and redeveloped buildings. Of course, there is the new Black Holocaust Museum, which I think of as the anchor for the community. As Bronzeville re-emerges, we want the area residents to participate because we’d like good people to engage and to live and work in these neighborhoods.”
Further on, I encountered Pastor Charles Watkins of the King Solomon Missionary Baptist Church on Vel Phillips and Meinecke in the heart of Bronzeville. He told me, “I’ve been pastor at King Solomon for 20 years. My congregation has 150 to 200 members. Bronzeville is growing. The right people are coming in. The community is beginning to care about itself. I see a lot of growth and a lot of potential. Every year that we come together at this Bronzeville Week, I see more participants celebrating. We are uniting again.”
One of the prominent vendors was the big white Pop’s Barbecue Wagon, hungry people lined up for barbecued chicken and ribs. The alluring smell wafted over the festival. I spoke with
Michael Hester, the “Pop” of Pop’s Barbecue located on 76th and Good Hope. He told me, “I always try to be part of festivals in the Black community and help bring our people back together. I think we’re finally doing a good job of bringing Bronzeville back. I pray that everything is well at all times.”
A block later, I ran into Ajamou Butler, the Black activist speaker whose Heal the Hood organization has helped Black youth through the years. He said, “Bronzeville has such a rich history of highs and lows, but I think the community is making a comeback. Bronzeville is in need of fellowship, the unity, the resources required for small businesses to thrive. Now, more than ever, the community needs to come together, whether supporting small businesses, real estate developments, non-profits, or anti-violence programs. Bronzeville is ‘dope' right now, but I say, give it another three to five years, and all will be even better.”
Ajamou Butler was busy with his Heal the Hood exhibit, and so I ventured out of the festival area and a half block down ML King Drive to Gee’s Clippers Barbershop, a cultural fixture in Bronzeville. The owner Gee Smith and his 22 barbers bring a vibrant spirit to the neighborhood. The shop lives in a former bank building. 8,000 square feet in all. The waiting area chairs come from the old Milwaukee Bucks arena. Gee’s Clippers has become a communal gathering spot for mostly Black folks from the neighborhoods and also a meeting place for worthy causes like the Men’s Wellness gathering, Fatherhood Initiative events, Mentor Greater Milwaukee, and a Covid Vaccine clinic. Former Mayor Tom Barrett described Gee’s Clippers as Bronzeville’s “Town Square, a relaxing, inviting atmosphere.”
I had a conversation with 48-year-old Richard Armstead, the veteran barber and manager of Gee’s Clippers. He was born and raised in the segregated North Side, one of seven children. From his father he learned to cut his own hair at the age of 11, and soon he started cutting his classmates’ hair in the basement of his family home to make extra money. After high school, he worked different jobs, but cut hair part time. In 1994, he aligned with Gee Smith who later opened his own barbershop. Richard has been with Gee Smith all the way since.
“Bronzeville was always close to my family,” he told me. “My uncle lived in this neighborhood, and my father and uncle hung out around here as young men. They could walk from bar to bar. It was a thriving neighborhood. But after the riots in 1967 and the freeway destruction, things started going downhill, stores and bars closing.”
I asked, “How did this barbershop become such a well-known gathering spot for people from Bronzeville?” “Gee’s bright personality,” he said. “Gee comes from a hardworking family. His dad was a super hard worker and a colorful character, and his mom was super nice. For a long time, Gee was a season ticket holder for the Milwaukee Bucks games. He got to know the Bucks office people, and they started coming here for their haircuts. Then, he met the Bucks’ owner Herb Kohl and the coaches, and later on, the players. Bucks’ players started coming here regularly. Then, Mr. Kohl allowed Gee to put his business logo on the arena floor. That publicity brought people into our shop. At one time, we had a program for kids with good grades. We’d give them a free haircut. Nowadays, the news stations might come in here and ask about what’s going on in Milwaukee.”
I was thinking that the Gee’s Clippers Barbershop culture has been rubbing off on Bronzeville.
Going beyond the Bronzeville Festivities, I walked up and down ML King Drive, a mixture of new and rehabbed buildings and stores, but also some vacant lots and deserted structures. I saw Bronzeville as a lovely old house with some of the rooms yet to be furnished, the landscape partially planted.
