MADISON, Wis. — About 1,000 people are expected to attend a gala event this weekend, as Wisconsin finally honors a person of color with a statue at its Capitol.
On Tuesday, workers lowered the shrouded statue of Wisconsin Secretary of State Vel Phillips into place and packed it into a crate ahead of its unveiling on Saturday.
“This is beautiful,” said Michael Johnson, a civil rights leader who came up with the idea and led efforts to raise $700,000 to cover the costs.
Black actor Larenz Tate will host the presentation, with Governor Tony Evers and Phillips’ son Michael among those in attendance.
It is rare for black leaders to be honoured in this way in parliament buildings, although there are some examples around the country.
Statues of the Little Rock Nine, the first black students to attend the segregated Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, stand outside the Arkansas Capitol building. A statue of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. stands outside the Georgia Capitol. And the seated Rosa Parks was the first statue of a black person to be placed in the U.S. Capitol, honoring the woman who refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955.
Phillips broke a long list of barriers as the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, won a seat on the Milwaukee City Council and became a judge in Wisconsin. She then became the first woman and Black person elected to state office in Wisconsin, serving as secretary of state from 1979 to 1983. She died in 2018 at the age of 95.
Johnson, who is Black and president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Dane County, said the idea came from complaints after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 that there was not a single person of color represented in the Wisconsin Capitol.
Johnson assumed Phillips would face the least resistance because she had been able to work with Republicans at the time.
“Wisconsin’s young people and generations to come need to see that representation matters and they need to see heroes and leaders who reflect the ecosystem of our communities at large,” Johnson wrote in a June 2020 proposal to the State Capitol and Executive Residence Board. The board unanimously approved the statue in late 2021. The presiding officer was then-Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, a white Republican, who called the vote “historic.”
A task force led by Johnson’s organization donations raised to cover full costswithout any state support, apart from preparing the site.
“I was shocked,” Johnson said. “I’m used to fighting for things. I expected people to stand up to it. And the fight never came.”
It is rare for black people to be honored in such a prominent place. Statues of black figures are rare, but there are examples
Michael Johnson
Four years
They enhance the image
I can’t believe this happened. Had to embrace the governor, the Democrats and the Republicans. And we
All donations. I probably raised more
when i knew i was going to ask the state for a grant it would have only lengthened the process. so i just started raising money. 100% funded by individual contributions, foundations all
I don’t believe the government got the subsidy
The night
There were some young activists who were angry with me. There was unrest in the city center. We had sent 3,000 people to clean up the city center.
They thought I was sending agents.
probably about 10,000 activists there, 4 in the morning. student body told me there was no representation of people of color in the state capitol. I just found it really hard that that would be true. Facebook page, Michael Johnson, open letter, the night before.
It was August 2020.
I then started with t
I met Vel at the UW-adison, where they named a dormitory after her.
The only person you could get bipsartisan support for was Vel Phillips. She did work with republicans. I met the governor, or team and several republicans.
Fortunately, the President of the Council of State, Loudenback.
I was shocked. I’m used to fighting for things. The fundraising gets hard at the end. I expected people to stand up to it. And the fight never came. As the first black woman to hold a single-member statute outside of a state capital
this is amazing
PRESIDENT OF THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF dANE COUNTY
When I started this, I appointed one of the board members as chairman
plan to have food, Hollywood actors – bunch of celebrities, live band, DJ
BGCD.org – on
5:00 PM to 10:00 PM
inside and outside, closing the gates
It’s going to be a big celebration. For this state, to have the first black woman
This is histroic. This is the first unique statue.