Madison, December 1963 - Madison Makes Civil Rights History
Madison in the Sixties – December, 1963 – Shirley Abrahamson helps Madison make civil rights history. In 1963, racial discrimination in housing was perfectly legal in Wisconsin, and very real; only about 27% of the city’s rental units, and 12% of the houses for-sale, were available to nonwhites. The city didn’t even have a meaningful board or commission working for civil rights. Instead, there was the Mayor’s Commission on Human Rights (MCHR), which the Council created in 1952 as a powerless consolation prize for activists after their proposed fair housing ordinance was soundly defe...
Source: wortfm.org