Crossing the Line: Our Past and Our Future

Panel Discussion on the Milwaukee Fair Housing Marches

Celebrate our new exhibit installation and attend an engaging, informative discussion on the Milwaukee Fair Housing Marches. Featuring Dr. Derek Handley, Dr. Rob Smith, Reggie Jackson, and Mia Phifer.

For Fair Housing Month in April, the Washington Park Branch Library will be hosting the traveling display Crossing the Line: The Milwaukee Fair Housing Marches of 1967-1968, provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society. Crossing the Line commemorates the 50th anniversary of Milwaukee's civil rights marches by examining the practices and prejudices that led to segregation in Milwaukee and chronicling the school desegregation and fair housing movements of the 1960s. It also asks the question, "What can you do to end segregation today?"

To celebrate this exhibit, attend an informative panel discussion on the Milwaukee Fair Housing Marches. This discussion will be moderated by Mia Phifer, the Senior Education, Collections, & Outreach Coordinator at America's Black Holocaust Museum. Panelists include:

• Dr. Derek A. Handley is an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is also affiliated faculty in the Urban Studies Program and African & African Diaspora Studies Department. Dr. Handley is the author of Struggle for the City: Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement, and is co-director of the Mapping Racism and Resistance in Milwaukee County Project, which comprehensively maps racial covenants and uncovers Black resistance to such discrimination. 
• Reggie Jackson is an award-winning journalist and internationally renowned expert on race relations. Reggie's online column has been recognized by the Milwaukee Press Club, and in 2017, he was awarded the Frank P. Zeidler Public Service Award by the City of Milwaukee. Recently, he won the 2022 Voice of Justice Award from All of Us or None and the 2021 Carter G. Woodson Memorial Award from the National Education Association, and is currently the Consulting Griot at America's Black Holocaust Museum.
• Dr. Robert S. Smith is the Harry G. John Professor of History and Director of the Center for Urban Research, Teaching & Outreach at Marquette University. He is also the Resident Historian at America's Black Holocaust Museum, and is chair of the Milwaukee County Human Rights Commission. Dr. Smith is the author of Black Liberation from Reconstruction to Black Lives Matter and Race, Labor & Civil Rights: Griggs v. Duke Power and the Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity.

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