A Dream Derailed the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL a Reprint of a Series That Ran December 5-7, 2004
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A dream derailed THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL A reprint of a series that ran December 5-7, 2004 GARY PORTER / [email protected] Frank Thompson came from Alabama in 1965 to work at the industrial flagships A.O. Smith and Allis-Chalmers, until the plants shut down. Now, he owns a housing rehabilitation business, Thompson Vision 2000 Inc. SPECIAL REPORT: The region’s economy has been stunted and its future imperiledbyajoblossworsethanthe Great Depression in Milwaukee’s CITY OF urban center. MILWAUKEE MANU- BLACK Hit by a FACTURING POPULATION JOBS global train 220,432 By JOHN SCHMID [email protected] o major urban center in America has suffered as much as Mil- 133,051 waukee’s from the economic upheaval of a globalizing economy, N an exhaustive analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found. No other African-American community worked as intensively at manu- facturing products that are no longer made here, or was less prepar- ed for a historic shift from unskilled labor. In little more than a generation, Milwaukee has morphed from an El Dorado of unrivaled opportunity for African-Americans — and a beacon for their middle-class aspirations — to a locus of downward 36,422 mobility without equal among other big U.S. cities. The result: A depression in the region’s urban core far more se- vere than the Great Depression of the 1930s. 8,821 Please see ECONOMY, 2S ’47 ’01 ’40 ’00 ABOUT THE SERIES PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 For years, folks in Milwaukee Hit by a global A dream derailed Emerging have blamed one another for train The Milwaukee Road markets the region’s racial disparity An analysis of a half- literally encircled the A new generation of and the growing gap century of data for the perimeter of Milwaukee’s leaders is advancing between rich and poor. Yet, nation’s largest cities black community, market-driven agenerationago,Milwaukee shows that no urban defining where they lived 21st-century solutions for offered hope, opportunity and center fell as far, as fast, and worked. When it poor neighborhoods. jobs to people of all races. as hard as Milwaukee derailed, so did the Promise is seen in the What changed? from the upheaval of a dreams of a whole city’s central location, low Aspecial,in-depthreportby globalizing economy. Nor community. But now, transportation costs, the Journal Sentinel was any city’s black work there are signs the urban cheap land and proximity examines that question over force less prepared for the core is getting back on to universities and the the next three days. shift from unskilled labor. track. ideas they incubate. ON JSONLINE.COM Go to www.jsonline.com/links/brown to read previous stories in the yearlong Journal Sentinel series, “Still Separate and Unequal.” 2S SPECIAL REPRINT A DREAM DERAILED MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL MANUFACTURING JOBS THE RAPID RISE AND FALL OF THE BLACK BLUE COLLAR WORKER IN MILWAUKEE Milwaukee’s economy, which prospered as a world-class industrial powerhouse, changed radically in little ... because manufacturing more than a single generation, and The black migration to ... and the blacks who moved ... many blacks in Milwaukee was booming, median family few felt the changes as acutely as its Milwaukee came significantly here were not as well- took jobs in manufacturing, income among Milwaukee ... and black poverty was African-American laborers. later than in other Midwest educated as those in many more than in any other major blacks was nearly 19% higher significantly lower than the cities ... other major U.S. cities... city in the United States ... than the national average ... national average ... BLACK POPULATION IN MILWAUKEE AND BLACK ADULTS WITH AT LEAST BLACKS IN BLUE COLLAR JOBS MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME OF BLACKS BLACK POVERTY RATE IN 20 LARGEST OTHER MIDWEST CITIES, 1940 to 2000 A HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA, 1970 FOR 2O LARGEST U.S. CITIES, 1970 IN 20 LARGEST U.S. CITIES, 1970 U.S. CITIES, 1970 AS A PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL POPULATION AS A PERCENTAGE OF ALL BLACKS AS A PERCENTAGE OF BLACK LABOR FORCE IN 1970 DOLLARS AS A PERCENTAGE OF BLACK POPULATION 25 AND OLDER IN 20 LARGEST U.S. CITIES 100 DETROIT 1 SAN DIEGO 51.0% 1 MILWAUKEE 42.9% 1 DETROIT $8,645 1 NEW ORLEANS 43.7% 81.2% 2 LOS ANGELES 50.3 2 DETROIT 39.3 2 WASHINGTON 8,488 2 MEMPHIS 41.1 80 ST. LOUIS 3 SAN FRANCISCO 48.5 3 MEMPHIS 38.2 3 CHICAGO 7,883 3 PHOENIX 36.5 51.0 4 BOSTON 45.1 4 CLEVELAND 36.2 4 INDIANAPOLIS 7,849 4 SAN ANTONIO 36.4 CLEVELAND 5 WASHINGTON 43.9 5 CHICAGO 34.4 5 SAN FRANCISCO 7,676 5 ST. LOUIS 31.2 60 50.5 6 NEW YORK 40.6 6 DALLAS 33.6 6 CLEVELAND 7,617 6 DALLAS 29.8 7 SAN ANTONIO 39.5 7 PHILADELPHIA 33.4 7 MILWAUKEE 7,491 7 HOUSTON 29.7 MILWAUKEE 40 36.9 8 CHICAGO 39.4 8 BALTIMORE 33.4 8 SAN DIEGO 7,408 8 BOSTON 28.4 CHICAGO 9 DETROIT 36.9 9 HOUSTON 33.0 9 PHILADELPHIA 7,379 9 MILWAUKEE 27.4 36.4 10 DALLAS 36.6 10 NEW ORLEANS 32.3 10 BALTIMORE 7,289 10 CLEVELAND 27.2 20 PITTSBURGH 0 20 40 60 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 2 4 6 8 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 27.0 14 MILWAUKEE 33.8% UNITED STATES 33.0% UNITED STATES $6,308 UNITED STATES 35.0% 0 INDIANAPOLIS UNITED STATES 31.4 ’40’60 ’80 ’00 25.4 Source: U.S. Census Bureau ALFRED ELICIERTO/[email protected] Change magnified in city ECONOMY, From 1S In fact, Milwaukee’s working-age black men have suffered almost twice the drop in employment that the na- tion endured in the Depression. The city’s black male employment rate plummeted by 21 percentage points from the peak of America’s industrial might in 1970 to the most recent cen- sus in 2000 — nearly double the 13 percentage point decline in the na- tional employment rate from 1929 to the Dust Bowl trough of 1933. In this 50th anniversary year of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education desegregation ruling, as communities across the country undergo a self-examination of their racial progress, a fresh analy- sis of a half-century of census reports and economic data for the nation’s largest cities reveals that none of their urban centers fell as far, as fast, as hard. Visitors familiar only with Milwau- kee’s graceful downtown architec- ture, shoreline parks and clean thor- oughfares might not guess that the city harbors racial disparities that exceed those in Detroit, Philadelphia and other archetypes of American ur- ban blight. Despite its roots as a pro- gressive Northern city that once lured laborers of all races with a bounty of family-supporting jobs, modern Milwaukee falls to the bot- tom of nearly every index of social distress. ■ In 1970, at the city’s industrial peak, the black poverty rate in Mil- waukee was 22% lower than the U.S. black average. That turned around by 2000, when the black poverty rate was 34% higher than the national figure. Among the nation’s 20 most populous GARY PORTER / [email protected] cities in 2000, Milwaukee had the Children eat lunch in the cafeteria at Lee Elementary School, 921 W. Meinecke Ave., where 95% are served free or reduced-rate lunches, making it one of the 20 poorest public highest rate of black poverty. elementary schools in the city of Milwaukee. ■ In 1970, the median family in- come for African-Americans in Mil- waukee black children under age 5 “When you deindustrialize white towns, you see the same when they abruptly lose their indus- waukee was 19% higher than the U.S. lived in poverty. Nationally, the Cen- phenomenon. Earnings fall. Marriage rates go down. Out-of- try. median income for black families. By sus Bureau estimated that 39% of all “When you deindustrialize white 2000, the black family income in Mil- black children under 5 were living wedlock birthrates rise. You see the same behavior as you would towns, you see the same phenome- waukee was 23% lower than the na- below the poverty level. in what we normally attribute as the urban underclass.” non,” Sum said. “Earnings fall. Mar- tional figure. In the 2000 census, Mil- ■ Wisconsin — where three of ev- riage rates go down. Out-of-wedlock waukee fell to 49th among the na- ery four African-Americans live in Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston birthrates rise. You see the same be- tion’s 50 largest metro areas in racial Milwaukee — has the nation’s high- havior as you would in what we nor- disparities in income. est rates of black teenage births and mally attribute as the urban under- ■ Milwaukee had the highest black ing issues of race, bigotry or welfare discrimination or integration to ex- class.” black incarceration, according to the culture, which have long been plain why Milwaukee does as badly,” unemployment rate of the major cit- Before he agreed to be interviewed, Kaiser Family Foundation and U.S. said Andrew Sum, director of the ies surveyed in 2002 by the Bureau of blamed for Milwaukee’s social ills. Sum independently analyzed Milwau- Justice Department, respectively. Center for Labor Market Studies at Labor Statistics. The bureau also They use the clean, empirical met- kee’s census data in his own comput- A growing school of sociologists Northeastern University in Boston.