“We have to say as a community this is unacceptable”

James Hall Jr., elected president of the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP in November, ran on a platform of reform. Now, months into the new role, Hall says Milwaukee needs reform – and quickly.

“In Milwaukee, the vast majority of the African American population is kind of locked into this very segregated environment, residentially, socially, economically and so forth,” Hall said. “We’re at the bottom of the heap. It’s unacceptable.”

Hall is committed to changing Milwaukee’s disparate racial landscape, and he believes the city’s label as the most segregated city in the country is justified. He points to the troubled public education system and the low unemployment rate of Milwaukee’s African-American men as proof.

Consider these recent findings:

• The Nation’s Report Card, issued in December by the U.S. Department of Education, showed that Milwaukee’s urban fourth and eighth grade students scored lower in reading last year compared to 2009.
• Marc Levine, founding director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Center for Economic Development, issued a report this month that only 44.7 percent of working-age black males were employed last year – the lowest rate ever in Milwaukee. Nationwide, only Buffalo and Detroit reported lower black male employment.

Hall said the reform he seeks must start with jobs, but inclusiveness is the longer-ranging fix.

“Jobs is the first thing, but it’s more than just jobs,” he said. “We have to change the picture in terms of opportunity and jobs. If you have 50 percent of African-American males unemployed and a city that is as un-inclusive as Milwaukee, you’re going to still have these problems.”

“If it weren’t for that, people would be able to really understand how it’s in everyone’s enlightened self interest to have more inclusive economy,” he said. “You attract more business, have fewer social problems, you have more people working, you lower crime.”

But it takes the entire community, and Hall plans on asking the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and Greater Milwaukee Committee to help address the issue.

“You have to have a real commitment, a plan, to move the needle,” he said. “We have to say as a community this is unacceptable. We need to act, we need to act quickly.”

Hall pointed to zoning codes and sunset laws of some suburbs that remained in effect until the 1950s as reasons influencing Milwaukee’s problematic segregation.

“It’s not by accident that the Milwaukee metropolitan area became as segregated as it is,” he said. “What’s so different between Milwaukee and, say, the Twin Cities, is the attitude in the Twin Cities. It’s a much more inclusive environment.

“A lot of people like to say Milwaukee’s a “conservative” city. I think frankly there are, when you drill down, racial attitudes that are at the root of the social problems, social issues, segregation, lack of inclusion in Milwaukee.”

Some of the racial problems are tied to attitudes, which Hall thinks are shown through things such as the city’s Old World architecture and ethnic festivals. He believes these, while not obvious to others, show a mindset that doesn’t want inclusion.

“Old World city means eastern European,” he said. “This may seem subtle but I think symbolically what it says about Milwaukee is we’re not going to change, it means the status quo. City leaders either tacitly or quietly know that and support that.

“I personally think the so-called ethnic festivals perpetuate separateness and segregation. It’s part of the same fabric that promotes separation.”

Hall is no newcomer to the NAACP and issues of racial disparity. Now 58, he moved to Milwaukee in 1979, and as a young civil rights attorney, he immediately became involved in the local NAACP and stayed involved ever since.

“The reason I stayed in Milwaukee was (because) I wanted to be involved in civil rights and promoting equal opportunity,” said Hall, who lives on the East side and practices law at Hall, Burce and Olson SC on North Water Street.

He’s been co-counsel with the Milwaukee NAACP, launched in 1924 and one of the oldest branches in the country, on landmark civil rights cases, including the 1990s’ class-action suit against American Family Insurance for redlining, which resulted in a $16.5 million settlement, a record at that time.

“I was involved in the NAACP in bringing cases and addressing matters of discrimination in employment, education, housing, public accommodations,” said Hall, who earned his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he grew up.