Nationally Recognized Political/Activist Leaders in Milwaukee Neighborhoods
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
PUBLISHED BY URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY INC. “IN THE TRADITION OF JANE JACOBS” DECEMBER/JANUARY EDITION Milwaukee Neighborhood Forum is a bimonthly newsletter that highlights assets, history, events, and resources for and about Milwaukee neighborhoods. Residents and neighbor- hood organizations are encouraged to submit press releases on their events and successful programs. See back page for details. Nationally recognized political/activist leaders in Milwaukee neighborhoods First of ten-part series on celebrities U.S. Postmaster General in Yankee Hill Henry Clay Payne (1843-1904) was the U.S. Postmas- ter General under President Theo- dore Roosevelt. Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, he moved to Mil- waukee at age 20 and opened a dry goods store, ulti- mately settling with his wife in the Yankee Hill neigh- Have you ever wondered who might have lived in your Milwau- borhood. kee neighborhood? For the next ten issues, Milwaukee Neigh- He first became borhood Forum will feature nationally recognized celebrities that politically active once resided on our city’s blocks. as a member of the Young Men’s Republican Club of Milwau- Themes of articles kee County and soon worked his way up to become chairman of the Republican National The order follows. (1) Political/Activist leaders (this issue), (2) Committee. He served as Postmaster Gen- Military leaders, (3) Writers/Journalists, (4) Religious leaders, (5) eral between 1902 and 1904, when he died Scientists, (6) Artists, (7) Musicians, (8) TV/Film stars, (9) Sports in office. He was buried at Forest Home heroes, and (10) Corporate leaders. Cemetery. 1 Continued on Page 2 Page MILWAUKEE POLITICAL/ACTIVIST LEADERS (continued) An activist who once played football in Continued from Page 1 the Borchert Field neighborhood Activist in the Menomonee River Valley: Ezekiel Gillespie Paul Leroy Robe- son (1898-1976) Born in Greene County, Tennessee, the son of an African Amer- was a concert art- ican slave and likely her white owner, Ezekiel Gillespie was ist, stage and film raised in slavery. As a young man, he purchased his freedom for actor, and foot- $800. Settling briefly in Indiana, he arrived in Milwaukee in 1854. ball player who He initially got a job selling groceries on Mason and Broadway became known (then Main Street). internationally for The Gillespie family lived at various locations in and border- his sports and ar- ing the Menomonee River Valley, including the Third Ward, tistic accomplish- Walkers Point, and possibly Merrill Park. ments but also for Ezekial Gillespie saw the opportunities in the developing Val- his political activ- ley. When employment opened at the Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail- ism. He was edu- way Company, he took jobs as a porter and then as a messenger cated at Rutgers for the railroad. The Railway Company became a major em- and Columbia ployer of early arriving African Americans to Milwaukee—a trend universities. While taking a break from Co- that continued during the years of the Great Migration. lumbia, he played for the NFL's Milwaukee Early on, Gillespie saw himself as an activist in support of the Badgers. early arriving blacks in the city. When he tried to vote in 1865, he The Milwaukee Badgers were founded by was denied a ballot. At the insistence of Milwaukee leaders such Chicago promoters who saw the city as a as Sherman Booth, he sued the Board of Elections. The case of great prospect for a professional football Gillespie v Palmer went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme club. To create a team that could compete in Court where the justices sided with Gillespie. The case became the early National Football League, the men a watershed moment for African American rights in the state and brought in multiple All-Americans in hopes of made Ezekial Gillespie a national hero. building a team of all-stars that could rival the At the end of his life, Gillespie moved to Chicago. He died there Green Bay Packers for state supremacy. in 1892, but his remains were brought back to Milwaukee, where Robeson and the Badgers played their he joined a multitude of other Milwaukee leaders and wife Cath- home games at Borchert Field. Ending his erine at the Forest Home Cemetery. football career after 1922, Paul Robeson re- turned to Columbia where he earned a law A Socialist mayor and presidential candidate in Harambee degree. Later Robeson would become involved in Frank Paul Zeidler (1912-2006) political activism including support for the was a Socialist politician and Mil- Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War waukee mayor, serving between and opposition to fascism. In the U.S. he be- 1948 and 1960. came an active participant in the Civil Rights Later he served as a consultant Movement and other social justice cam- for the Ford Foundation, became paigns. His expressions of sympathy for the a member of the cabinet of Wis- Soviet Union and communism caused him to consin Governor John W. Reyn- be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. olds, worked as a labor arbitrator, and taught at local universities U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and and colleges. Welfare in Avenues West neighborhood He was involved in re-forming the Socialist Party USA in 1973, Wilbur Joseph Cohen and served as its National Chair was called “the man for many years, becoming the par- who built Medicare.” ty's presidential nominee in 1976. He was born in 1913 The party had 400-600 members in Milwaukee. His nationwide at the time. parents ran a fruit He and his running mate, J. market and later a Quinn Brisben, received 6,038 grocery store. The votes, including approximately family had lived on 2,500 in Milwaukee County. Their ticket appeared on ten state North Hopkins Street, ballots. and on North 22nd, Zeidler moved to the Harambee neighborhood in 1946 and and eventually at 751 lived there to his death in 2006. 2 Continued on Page 3 Page MILWAUKEE POLITICAL/ACTIVIST LEADERS (continued) many interviews on national television In- Continued from Page 2 cluding on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and the 700 Club. North 21st Street at the edge of today’s Avenues West neighbor- U.S. Assistant Secretary of War in the hood. Third Ward Wilbur may have been influenced by the twin agendas of ed- ucation and social service in the Avenues West neighborhood. Joseph Bodwell Doe, Jr. (1855-1925) was Wilber went to Lincoln High School, where he won the Harvard born in Janesville, Wisconsin. A graduate of book prize in 1929 and became a leader on the student council, Racine College, Doe later became Ja- school newspaper, and even in athletic management. In 1934, nesville’s city attorney. He also served in the Wilbur graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wisconsin National Guard where he rose to From there he took a job in the federal government, working as the rank of captain. He was appointed the an economist and a research assistant for the committee which Adjutant General of Wisconsin by Governor drafted the Social Security Act. George Wilbur Peck in 1891. As a staff aid on Franklin Roosevelt’s Committee on Economic In 1893 President Grover Cleveland ap- Security in the 1930s, Wilbur Cohen became one of the pioneers pointed him to the cabinet position of Assis- of the Social Security system. He helped design the Social Se- tant Secretary of War, where he served until curity Act of 1935. He served as Director of the Bureau of Re- 1897. Afterwards he returned to Wisconsin search and Statistics of the Social Security Board (later the So- and set up a private law practice in Milwau- cial Security Administration). kee’s Third Ward. In 1961, Wilbur Cohen was appointed Assistant Secretary for Legislation of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). His peak Two political leaders on city’s border of government service came when the Johnson Administration appointed him Secretary of the Department of Health Education, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and Welfare. In this capacity he was instrumental in enacting the in Shorewood Medicare program in 1965. He worked with Johnson to expand social welfare programs under the Great Society initiative. William Hubbs Rehnquist (1924-2005) was a jurist who served on the Supreme Court of Civil rights activist in the Arlington Heights neighborhood the United States for 33 years. Rehnquist grew up in Shorewood and Dr. James Herbert Cam- graduated from Shorewood High School. He eron, Jr. (1914-2006) served in the U.S. Army Air Force during the founded America’s Black final years of World War II. Holocaust Museum in Mil- Going to college on the GI Bill, he attended waukee. Earlier he had both Stanford and Harvard universities. After founded three chapters of receiving a law degree, he climbed the lad- the National Association der from private practice to the U.S. Justice for the Advancement of Department to the Supreme Court. Colored People (NAACP) U.S. Secretary of Defense in Shorewood in Indiana and served as Indiana's State Director of Leslie (Les) As- the Office of Civil Liberties from 1942 to 1950. pin (1938-1995) Although born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, James’ mother (later served in Con- divorced) moved her children to the North Central Indiana town gress from Wis- of Marion to be near relatives. In 1930, when James was just consin's 1st dis- sixteen years old, he and two other black teenagers were brutally trict from 1971 to lynched. Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith died, but, with the 1993. He was rope already around his neck, James was saved. He was con- appointed the victed as an accessory to the murder that led to the lynching.