In the 60′s Milwaukee was
called Selma of North

In the Opinion page of our local newspaper our congresswoman wrote an article called: Wisconsin Still the Selma of the North. She was talking about the proposed Wisconsin Voter ID law that is still in court that would restrict voting.

However, the civil rights struggle was about a lot more than voting rights. If we compare Selma with Milwaukee these days on poverty, education, racial segregation and imprisoning African American males Milwaukee is over Selma.

Milwaukee is the second poorest city in the USA rankly slightly below Detroit. Selma is a smaller city but has less percentage of people below poverty level than Milwaukee.

In Public School ratings, compared to other schools in the area Milwaukee as a 36% rating while Selma has a 66% rating.

In the most racially segregated cities in the USA, Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wisconsin is number 1 in the last two censuses. Gadsen, Alabama is number 10 while the Selma/Dallas County area is not even in the top 25.

In terms of incarceration of African American males Wisconsin ranks number one in the USA and the majority of these men are from Milwaukee. I could not find Selma’s or Alabama’s ratings but they cannot be better than the number one percentage of Wisconsin and Milwaukee.

The comparison could go on. See M.A.P.S. for areas of poverty, racial segregation and unemployment in Milwaukee. But Selma is no way near being the Milwaukee of the South.

Comments

Please send any comments on this post to . Let us know which day’s post your comments pertain to. If the comments are appropriate we will post them here for you.