Photo Credit: Tom Jenz
At 40 years old, Gideon Verdin-Williams is an accomplished photojournalist for WTMJ-TV News Milwaukee. He is also an active community member, and he knows the inner city, its troubles and challenges. On a brisk Friday afternoon, I met Verdin-Williams in his neighborhood on 47th Street near Lisbon. A number of his followers were picking up trash off the streets. A chain link fence separated them from the corridor of traffic below on Highway 175. The noise was constant. I was there to hear about Verdin-Williams’s effort to help clean up Milwaukee in more ways than just picking up litter.
What’s going on here today?
It’s pretty simple. We call it CleanUpMKE. Cleanup Milwaukee. The idea was sparked by the GunsDown Miltown, a public service campaign to promote non-violence. Our goal is to give young people an option when it comes to gun violence. Often today, young people in the inner city feel they don’t have options. They have to be the drug dealer, the car thief, the gun carrier, the hustler. We want to show kids it’s not okay to carry a gun. Too many times the wrong option will get you killed or put you in prison. We try to get kids to do something positive, whether it’s a block party, a book club, or a block cleanup like this one. We also try to get influential people involved and supportive. Entrepreneurs, politicians, activists, other resources. It’s a community taking responsibility for itself. As for what you see here today, we just want to clean up this neighborhood. Nothing political. Just encourage residents to take initiative rather than wait for the city to help. Clean up your own neighborhood. My idea is that hopefully this would create a culture shift, people taking pride in their community, take value in their neighborhoods, take value in life.
It’s a good start. But sometimes, I get the sense that there is a feeling of hopelessness in the central city. If you’re a kid, do you have a future? If you’re an adult, can you have pride if your neighborhood is downtrodden, your community lacking in stores and businesses? or example, this problem: It’s been my experience in spending time with inner city residents and leaders like Vaun Mayes, Tory Lowe, Victor Barnett, and Frank Nitty that one of the big issues is the lack of fathers, lack of strong male role models.
That is one of the undeniable issues we face in the inner city. I hate to say it but Milwaukee is a melting pot for disaster. Black male incarceration, teenage pregnancy, big high school dropout rates, all this adds up to kids raising themselves. No father figure, mother working all the time. How do we solve the problem? I think we need to do a better job of rehabilitating people, providing more resources, and highlighting the Black street leaders who are taking the place of absent fathers. I call it the Big Uncle approach, men not being afraid to step in and give guidance and tutorship. Our problems won’t change unless we take ownership. Respect each other’s lives. As you know, young Black men are dying or put in jail at the highest rate in this city. We need a culture shift all around, and that includes gun violence.
Verdin-Williams was raised in the inner city, grew up on Palmer and Meinecke in the Brewers Hill area. His father is Brian Verdin, long-time activist. A teacher for over 30 years, Brian recently retired. His mother is Savannah Williams. Brian and Savannah were part of the Rainbow Coalition, working alongside Angela Davis when she visited Milwaukee. His grandmother is Beverly Verdin who spent 30 years as a secretary at Oliver Wendell Homes MPS. His brothers are all teachers, and Gideon teaches young people on the side. His family has a long history of education involvement in Milwaukee, teaching youth for over a century.
So what Milwaukee schools did you go to?
Palmer elementary, OW Holmes middle school, Hartford Avenue junior high, and I graduated from Riverside High School. Then, I went to college at UW Whitewater. In college, I was involved in student activism. We did the Black-face protests. We shook things up with the chancellor. We got new funding for the multi-cultural center.
Your career has been as a photojournalist.
I’ve loved cameras since I was a kid, still cameras, VHS cameras. Later, I found a passion for television news. I started with WTMJ as an intern, then an editor. Six years later, I was a photojournalist and a contributor to the news desk. I’m in a position to contribute to the news in a way the helps my city. I take pride in being able to identify and highlight the good things going on in Milwaukee for a wider audience. Essentially promoting positivity. Being a photojournalist gives me an opportunity to represent my community.
A few days later, the CleanUpMke results were in. One hundred-forty volunteers cleaned up areas all over the East Side. Verdin-Williams’s cause reminds me of something Martin Luther King once said. “Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.”
