Redress Movement aims to repair damage caused by decades of racism, discrimination in Milwaukee

For far too many years, Milwaukeeans have heard that they live in the most segregated community in the United States. A lot has been written and said about how we acquired this status and the detrimental outcomes associated with segregation.

Marc Levine of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center on Economic Development has detailed the stark disparities that make segregated Milwaukee one of the more difficult places for Blacks to live in the country. Of the 50 largest metro areas in the country, Milwaukee has: the second lowest Black homeownership rate; the highest Black male incarceration rate; the lowest Black median family income; and the highest Black poverty rate.

One of the common laments among residents is that we do too much talking about the problem and not nearly enough to fix the problems. Now, a new national organization, The Redress Movement, has landed in Milwaukee and is working to change this situation. The Redress Movement is working collaboratively with people and organizations who want to change metro Milwaukee.

The Redress Movement is a national, not-for-profit organization, whose mission is to begin the process of redressing the damage caused by decades of legal and illegal segregation policies and practices.

The organization was created as a result of the work of Richard Rothstein and his award-winning book, "The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America." Conversations and book clubs around the country focused on his assertion that explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels led to residential segregation by race across the country.

The Milwaukee area was home to multiple groups hosting book reads and public programs about segregation. In 2016. I began doing a presentation I call “The Hidden Impact of Segregation,” detailing the history of segregation and what makes Milwaukee stand out from other highly segregated metropolitan areas around the country. I have had the honor of sharing the stage with Rothstein on three separate occasions, co-presenting about segregation nationally and locally.

Rothstein's presentations focus on dispelling the myth that segregation is caused solely by private actors such as Realtors, bankers and residents of neighborhoods, what’s known as “de facto segregation.” His research has exposed the fact that explicit government policies at the local, state and federal levels, what is known as “de jure segregation,” also created the segregated spaces we still see in metro Milwaukee today.

As a result of the popularity of his book, a group of national civil rights leaders, convened by Ted Shaw, the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina, decided to create an organization to take on redressing racial segregation. This is how The Redress Movement was formed. Initial phases of its work have been launched in Charlotte, North Carolina; Denver, Colorado; and Milwaukee. Teams are working in each of the three cities to garner support from community members and organizations that want to change the status quo. Eventually, The Redress Movement plans to expand into other cities across the country.

The Redress Movement is an emerging racial justice organization that aims to organize racially and ethnically diverse local movements in communities throughout the U.S. We want citizens to get involved by researching the history of segregation, documenting the history of segregation and agitating for change. We believe that just as segregation was caused by specific laws, specific policies and specific decision-makers, segregation and its multigenerational impacts can be redressed. Our vision is a society no longer divided and separated.

So far in metro Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Redress has convened several meetings with key stakeholders from diverse communities. We have had community discussions about the growth of corporate landlords as well as disparate increases in assessed home values, and increasing homeownership access across the city.

We host Redress Roundtables, where relevant issues are discussed and plans are developed. This effort will lead to committees from the various communities that are most impacted by and most interested in redressing the damage caused by segregation, working together on the solutions people have long asked for. Members of the African American, Latinx and white communities are coming together to find out how they can work with each other in developing goals that will ultimately define how Milwaukee moves forward in redressing the damage caused over many decades.

The work will not be easy. This is a first attempt to create steps toward fixing segregation issues by bringing people and groups together outside the normal silos we see so often in Milwaukee.

There are multiple organizations in metro Milwaukee that have become part of the early Redress Movement roundtables such as: The Greater Milwaukee Foundation; The Milwaukee NAACP; The Metropolitan Milwaukee Fair Housing Council; The Sherman Park Neighborhood Association; Bridge the Divide; Bay Bridge; Voces de La Frontera and many others. Housing experts, governmental agencies, nonprofits, community-based organizations and everyday citizens in the city and suburbs are coming together to build capacity to make redress real here.

The national leadership of Redress has continued to raise awareness and identify dedicated people in the three cities who will lead the work. Three of the basic principles that will guide the work are:

• Bringing visibility to racial segregation and how its impact has undermined the success of Black communities for decades.

• Helping to educate, organize and mobilize local communities to redress past harms done by intentional efforts to segregate our nation.

• Organizing Redress campaigns that are driven by local Redress Committees and Roundtables.

We are in the early stages of the work, but so far there has been a steady growth of support for The Redress Movement in Milwaukee. More information about The Redress Movement can be found at www.redressmovement.org. You can also find a researched story map of the history of segregation in Milwaukee at redressmovement.org/storymaps-milwaukee/.

Reggie Jackson, co-owner of Nurturing Diversity Partners and a Milwaukee historian, is a researcher with The Redress Movement.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Redress Movement works at healing after decades of racism in Milwaukee