Exhibit — Living for the City: The Black Middle Class in Milwaukee

A traveling exhibition in conjunction with the “Living for the City: The Black Middle Class in Milwaukee” oral history project, which challenges and complicates existing narratives about Black Milwaukee mired in narrow assertions of poverty, segregation, incarceration, and educational underachievement. These are not the only stories to tell about Black Milwaukee. Research confirms that Milwaukee’s Black residents have lived experiences marked by successes, demanding that we attend to those middleclass experiences left out of current academic and socio-political discourses. Studying those with class advantages brings insights into social inequality. We know what Black poverty looks like in Milwaukee, but what does Black success look like? Turning the lens to middle class opens other narratives and representations of African Americans in Milwaukee.

“The Living for the City” project consists of over 70 interviews that are archived at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries.