As I waited outside the Wisconsin Studio for audience members to be allowed inside, five or six college-aged folks assembled with me by the door. I thought it was rather nice to see some members of the younger set taking an interest in the history of their community and a history which is doesn't get much attention when we look back at ourselves. Once we were let it, I noticed Madison's poet laureate, Fabu, wandering the aisle chatting with folks all the while.
It wasn't too long before the emcee welcomed us and introduced Dr. Powe who would talk on the subject of black contributions to the world. It's difficult to think of a broader topic. He began by discussing who black people are and noted three racial categories that have been handed down to us: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and Negroid. Africa, he said, had many people who were "purely Negroid", but that there were millions of people throughout the world who have very dark skin and kinky hair. Dr. Powe proceeded to give examples of peoples who are combinations of these three racial groups. There were Creoles, the black Seminoles of Florida, mulattoes in the Dominican Republic, and many more examples.
The first part of his talk ended with him saying that the notion of "any people with Negroid characteristics" are Negroid is a very American conception of race.
Next Dr. Powe addressed why he writes about blacks as a group. He first considered the idea that we are all the same species with skin color being a minor difference before rejecting it on the grounds that color is a condition. This was followed up with the observation that blacks almost always find themselves in a subservient role when their skin color is not of the majority. In this time of the Obama candidacy and lots of talk about America having morphed into a post-racial society, I found Dr. Powe's comments here quite refreshing.
Lastly he stated what should be obvious to all, namely, that black have contributed to humanity in all manners possible: the arts, science, etc.
(L to R – Dr. Powe, Dr. Harris, and Ms. Banks)
The second speaker, Ms. Banks, was next. She told us that she was a descendant of one of the first black families in Madison. Her grandparents were William and Anna Mae (I hope I've got the spelling correct here) Miller. William, a lawyer, had been invited by Bob La Follette to come to Madison and be one of his advisors. When they arrived, both William and Anna Mae, who was a teacher, both found themselves unable to practice their professions. Due to the racism of the day, William could not technically be an advisor to La Follette and was instead given the title of "messenger". Despite setbacks, the couple did well for themselves here and would go on to found a church as well as a boarding house on Dayton Street.
If all of this sounds Madison-centric for a speaker who was to talk about Black contributions to Wisconsin, then know that William was part of Du Bois' Talented Tenth. As theorized by Du Bois, the "Talented Tenth" were the one in ten black men who would get a liberal education and become public intellectuals. With this background they would push/agitate for social change. Both Booker T. Washington and DuBois were guests in the Miller home. They founded the Negro Book Lover's Club which was a precursor to the Madison chapter of the NAACP.
Ms. Banks described her grandparents as "elitist" and said that they only socialized with people of the same social class. When William died, Anna Mae found herself in dire financial straits and eventually became a housekeeper for white families in Madison. Despite this rather sad ending to their tale, Ms. Banks said that they left her a rich legacy of political activity to build upon. She worked for Family Enhancement for many years before starting a show for kids on WYOU called "Club TNT" (Today Not Tomorrow) and is active on many boards and committees in Madison.
She ended her talk by saying that most white historians ignore her family when writing about the history of Wisconsin. I was reminded of a recent op-ed in The Capital Times by Fabu which lamented the absence of blacks on the walls of the Capitol which depict the history of our state.
Perhaps this situation will be remedied a little bit by the last speaker of the evening, Dr. Richard Harris. Dr. Harris is working on a book which chronicles the history of blacks in Madison. At 71, he was lively, engaging and made us laugh many times beginning with his comment that his parents tried to set him up with Ms. Banks when they were younger. His talk was more a long bout of reminiscing than anything formal.
Like Ms. Banks, Dr. Harris is descended from one of the early black family to settle in Madison. When he was growing up, most blacks lived in one of three areas in Madison. First there was the area from the Capitol to about Blair, then there was Greenbush (which he called the west side as a kid), and finally South Madison, an area around the intersection of Park Street and Wingra Drive. As a youth, he thought everyone in Madison was black.
He noted that on Friday and Saturday nights, there was always a party in someone's basement for the blacks in Madison. Sundays meant church but also a stop at the Chicken Shack on West Washington afterwards.
(Some photos of South Madison residents from Dr. Harris.)
At this point, Dr. Harris went back a bit farther and explained how his parents ended up in Madison. His father was originally from Kentucky but was living in Cincinnati when he was part of a crew that moved some items to Madison for another gentlemen. The elder Harris liked Madison so much, he decided to stay. Dr. Harris' mother was originally from Georgia. Her uncle had a run-in with a white man and the black family was frightened by the prospect of revenge on the part of the whites. So the uncle left town and was soon followed by many of the women of the family. Dr. Harris' mother left Georgia and settled here.
This was in the early 1930s when racial discrimination in employment and housing was common. Dr. Harris got a bit choked up as he told the story of how his parents built their home here in Madison. They found a plot of land they wanted and approached the seller who was white. The guy told them that there were already too many negroes in the neighborhood and that they didn’t want any more. And so the Harris' kept looking and found another plot owned by someone who didn't have a problem selling to blacks. The Harrises got to work on building their home. One day the man who had refused to sell to them earlier wandered by and started going off on a tirade of indignation and racism. The Italian owner of a nearby store called the police. When they arrived, they quickly grew tired of the guy's yelling and one of them proceeded to smash him in the mouth with his billy club before arresting him. It was the first time Mr. Harris had seen white police officers arrest a white man. Strangely enough, the man the police arrested and Mr. Harris would eventually become the best of friends.
Dr. Harris recalled that, as a child in the 1950s, blacks and white got along very well. His white teachers talked about black history in classes whereas his children's teachers did not. This was something that I and, judging from the reactions I heard, many in the audience were not expecting to hear.
All too soon Dr. Harris' allotted time was up and the panelists fielded questions from the audience. Three questions stick out for me.
The first was by someone who sounded like a young woman. She asked Dr. Harris why race relations are better here in Madison than Milwaukee. His response was that it is not; perhaps even worse. He observed that, as Madison's black population has increased, the racism here has increased commensurately. This was certainly something that no one in the audience wanted to hear. Dr. Harris pointed out that Dane County (Madison, for all intents and purposes) locks up more blacks than any other in the state. While I would argue that this statistic in and of itself is not proof of an increase in racism, it should be deeply troubling to our community.
Not being black and having moved here only in 1990, it is difficult for me to say whether or not Madison is more racist now that it was at some time in the past. Anyone have thoughts on this?
A young man seated just behind me asked Dr. Powe what he was most shocked to encounter during his extensive travels around the tropics. While his voice and demeanor earlier had been rather dry, Dr. Powe really showed some excitement in answering the question. It was a rather simple response – "Everything is new when you travel" – but he said it with such glee that I immediately wanted to hop on a plane and go somewhere else.
The final question of the evening wasn't even a question. A white woman seated several rows behind me said that she had moved to Madison in the 8th grade and that she knew Dr. Harris. Her family, which was German, had moved from Westport to Madison, near what is now the Mendota Mental Health Institute which, back in the day, was a place where soldiers convalesced with their families. With sadness in her voice, she related how the military men at MMHI would not let their kids play with her because of her ethnicity.
This prompted many to gasp in shock. Ms. Banks chimed in that, when she was a child growing up in the Greenbush neighborhood, people generally got along well and were able to resolve conflicts. She said that there were no Dane Dances back then because they were not needed. In her words, "We learned about each other differently than we do now."
I stopped by Dr. Powe's table after the lecture where he had an array of his books available. Many of them were very thick volumes and, from my browsing, seemed to be serious ethnographic treatises. However, there were some slimmer volumes including one that caught my fancy, Black Cuisine of the Tropics: We Are What We Eat & Drink. He was quite amicable and very willing to engage folks one-on-one. It was also at his table that I ran into a young man clutching a laptop. He said that his Afro-American Studies professor was offering extra credit to students who attended this event and wrote a paper on it. I am hoping that he was the only student there and that the rest of the people who looked to be in their 20s had attended out of their own personal interest. Regardless, I hope they got something out of the event.
His books are published by Dan Aiki Publications and you can find out more about his work at the BLAC Foundation.
Ms. Banks can be heard on Saturday evenings from 6-8 on WTDY AM 1670 on the Heart and Soul program which is a mix of talk about our city and music. She is also the executive producer for the children's TV show Club TNT.
Dr. Harris told me that his book, Growing Up Black in South Madison, will be published next April, if he can successfully deal with his editors.
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