Staff, Author at Milwaukee Independent

Girl Scout troop honors legacy of Meta Schlichting Berger with monument

Posted by Staff | Jul 4, 2017 |

The transformative political activist Meta Schlichting Berger was remembered by a new generation of young girls, who memorialized the prominent educator’s lasting influence with a new memorial at Forest Home Cemetery on June 24. The members of Cudahy Girl Scout Troop 8617 worked over the past two years to raise the $800 needed to install a stone marker at Berger’s gave site. Buried alongside her husband and socialist politician Victor, she was documented by historians as expressly forbidding any memorials to her as “a frivolous expense.” But to the girls who were in the fourth grade at the time,...

Alexis Twito: Chaplains on the frontline of healing

Posted by Staff | Jun 30, 2017 |

Standing as a bridge between police who struggle to express compassion while applying enforcement of the law and a grieving community raw with pain and limited resources to cope are the 51 Chaplains of The Salvation Army, and the program’s coordinator Pastor Alexis Twito.

Audio: Youth learn trade skills at Westlawn sports complex build

Posted by Staff | Jun 28, 2017 |

YouthBuild is an alternative education program that provides job training and educational opportunities for at-risk youth ages 16 to 24. Participants learn construction skills while constructing or rehabilitating affordable housing for low-income or homeless families in their own neighborhoods. Members of the Milwaukee YouthBuild program, coordinated by the Housing Authority of the City of Milwaukee, were invited to earn hands on construction training at the location of the $150,000 multi-sport complex in Milwaukee’s Westlawn Neighborhood. These two audio interviews took place at that development site, with Tracey Underwood, a YouthBuild program member, and Evans Gant, the Section 3 Coordinator...

Video: Steve Schaffer navigates yesteryear by kayak

Posted by Staff | Jun 23, 2017 |

This video segment features scenes from a recent exploration of the Milwaukee River by kayak, guided by Steve Schaffer, Assistant Archivist for the Milwaukee County Historical Society (MCHS). In its second year, the Milwaukee River History Tour offers a unique view of the city from the waterway that allowed a small fur trading post to become a metropolis. “By imaging this old Milwaukee River, I think it is easier for people to understand that we now have a wonderful natural resource for recreation that has been vastly improved with regard to the pollution, unsightliness, and odor that plagued its...

A beautiful sea of black that white privilege cannot ignore

Posted by Staff | Jun 21, 2017 |

The Milwaukee community gathered on June 19 to celebrate Juneteenth Day for the 46th consecutive year. The holiday commemorates the abolition of slavery in the United States, resulting from the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The observance comes from the last American territory in Texas to relinquish its system of defining people of color as property. News of the Presidential order did not reach the community of Galveston until 1865, over two and a half years later, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived on June 19 with his troops to force the locals to comply with the federal directive. “That...

Audio: Inspirational highlights from ACRE commencement

Posted by Staff | Jun 20, 2017 |

This audio segment was recorded at the graduation ceremony of the 2016-2017 class of the Associates in Commercial Real Estate (ACRE) program on June 13. Featured speakers included Rocky Marcoux, Wyman Winston, and Mark Eppli and Barry Mandel, offering the real estate development community words of advice and inspiration. “You are here because you know there is a future, and you’re willing to take on projects that are difficult. But when they are accomplished, they are going to bring innumerable rewards to the folks that live in our neighborhoods. Some of those people you may know, but some people...