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 defeated.
In February, 1962, Atty. Lloyd Barbee, president of the state NAACP and chair of the Mayo’s Commission, released the draft of a tough human rights ordinance banning bias in housing, employment, and public accommodations. But it went nowhere, and Barbee soon moved to Milwaukee to start a successful 16-year lawsuit against segregation in the public schools. He also got elected to the State Assembly.
In 1963, Marshall Colston, chair of the local NAACP and vice-chair of the Mayor’s Commission, took up the fight, pressing Mayor Henry Reynolds, a conservative businessman, to move the matter along.
Not everyone agreed. “Colston and others like him are making a big hullabaloo over a problem that doesn’t exist,” declared Darwin Scoon, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Realtors Association. Homeowners should be able to sell—or not sell—to anyone they choose, he said.[i]
Even as Scoon championed private property rights, racial unrest simmered on the near east side over word that a second black family might move into an area neighborhood. Several months of anonymous threats brought increased police surveillance.[ii]
Opponents of open housing said the city didn’t have the authority for such an ordinance, until city attorney Edwin Conrad issued a legal opinion that “the meaning of the Civil War and the reason for the Union dead” was to foster equality and therefore the city could regulate private property and enact a fair housing ordinance.
City Attorney Edwin Conrad started drafting an ordinance, working closely with a young attorney serving on the Mayor’s Commission – future Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson. Both Colston and Abrahamson had been appointed to the Commission by the former mayor, liberal Ivan Nestingen.
Although the Mayor’s Commission on Human Rights was largely toothless, it did have some very active members, especially chair John McGrath and secretary Betty MacDonald. They created a group they called the Tuesday Night Committee to coordinate public support; several hundred individuals became actively involved.[iii]
Such citizen activism was the key. Mayor Reynolds would become an important supporter, but he did not initiate the effort; neither did any alder. Without the NAACP’s Lloyd Barbee and Marshall Colston, the Mayor’s Commission on Human Rights, and the Tuesday Night Committee, Madison would not have acted when it did – if it acted at all.
That broad base was necessary because the real estate industry – which supported segregated housing so strongly that the Board of Realtors disciplined members who sold houses in white neighborhoods to Black buyers — mobilized to fight the local fair housing provision, just as it did the later federal effort.
December 10, 1963 was United Nations Human Rights Day. It was not a good night for human rights in Madison.
Back then, the Council met as the Committee of the Whole on Tuesdays for public hearings, debate and a preliminary vote, with final votes on Thursday.
More than four hundred people packed the council chambers that night for a six-hour Committee of the Whole meeting devoted entirely to the Equal Opportunities Ordinance. Supporters far outnumbered opponents—except from the real estate industry.[iv]
The only realtor there in support was future Governor Patrick J. Lucey, owner of Madison’s largest real estate company. “Negroes here are the victims of a vicious and effective conspiracy, a disgrace for which we must all share the guilt,” he said.[v]
South side Ald. Harold “Babe” Rohr wasn’t swayed. He called the NAACP “a malicious force,” even though his district contained more than 55 percent of Madison’s black population, and declared, “Let’s face it, the world is built on prejudice and discrimination.”
Rohr, also the powerful head of the Painter’s Union, won. After almost two hours of debate, alders voted 12–10 to delete the entire housing provision.[vi]
Fair housing advocates had forty-two hours to get at least one vote changed, so Mayor Reynolds could break an 11–11 tie.[vii]
It was the council’s first and only female member, Tenth Ward Ald. Ethel Brown, who crafted the critical compromise—to exempt rooms in private homes and owner-occupied apartment buildings with four or fewer units. West side Ald. William Bradford Smith later said Brown’s idea wasn’t just tactical, but also to “reflect the attitudes of her constituents” in University Heights. Many of them rented rooms to UW students, Smith noted, but “wouldn’t want to open their homes to people of all races and colors where they would have to share the same bathroom.”[viii]
Brown’s amendment was quickly adopted. But then more amendments were adopted, exempting all absentee-landlord apartments and all single-family homes from coverage – so many exemptions that supporters considered pulling the matter entirely.
Then an unexpected savior appeared. Fair housing foe Ald. Bruce Davidson moved to limit exemptions to only owner-occupied buildings – more than doubling the number of units covered, increasing the number of houses and apartments where nonwhites could live in Madison by more than 9,000. His amendment carried, without debate, 20–2. But he still voted against the ordinance.[ix]
Far east side Ald. George Reger, who voted no on Tuesday, now voted in favor, creating an 11–11 tie that Reynolds broke with an emphatic “aye.” Madison had made history with adoption of the first fair housing ordinance in the state.[x]
The ordinance made it illegal to refuse to sell, rent, lease, or finance housing based on race, color, creed, or ancestry, with three major exemptions for certain owner-occupied properties — single-family residences, houses with not more than four roomers, and apartment buildings with four units or less.
Because the new ordinance still exempted more than 23,000 housing units – about 60 percent of the city’s housing stock – open housing advocates were restrained in their celebration that night. But privately, they were thrilled.
Ald. Rohr, the fiercest foe of fair housing, thought Thursday night was a smashing success, but Friday brought an uncomfortable understanding of what happened. Reading the full account of what finally passed, he’s aghast.
“My God!” he exclaims. “I had no idea what we voted for last night.”
Two weeks later, Mayor Reynolds appointed the charter members of the Equal Opportunities Commission, including holdover members of the Commission on Human Rights McGrath, MacDonald, and Rev. James C. Wright. He did not appoint Abrahamson or Colston.[xi]
And that’s this week’s Madison in the sixties. For your award-winning, mask-wearing, hand-washing socially distant WORT news team, I’m Stu Levitan.
Edwin Stein photo, courtesy Wisconsin Historical Society Archives. WHi-ID 137633
[i] Roger Gribble, “Leaders of NAACP, Realtors Disagree Over Housing Bias,” WSJ, July 25,1963; “City, Scoon at Odds On City Discrimination,” DC, July 25, 1963.
[ii] David Gordon, “’Unrest’ Case Possible, City Rights Group Told,’ WSJ, July 25, 1963; Editorial, “Civil Rights: Everyone’s Concern,” WSJ, August 1, 1963; Kirkhorn, “How Long Will Madison Negroes Feel Heel of Bias?” CT, August 6, 1963; “Realtors Take New Look at Housing,” WSJ, August 9, 1963.
[iii] “Rev. Pritchard Emphasizes Anti-Bias Steps of Church,” CT, October 7, 1963; “First Methodist Church Supports Fair Housing,” CT, October 15, 1963; “League of Women Voters Backs Open Housing Policy,” CT, October 29, 1963; Gribble, “Aid on Anti-Bias Law, Church Groups Urged,” WSJ, November 12, 1963; Richard Brautigam, “250 at Meeting Vow to Support City Ban Upon Discrimination,” CT, November 14, 1963; “Group Will Urge Passage of City Fair Housing Law,” WSJ, November 16, 1963; “WSA Promotes Madison Anti-Bias Ordinance; Urges Action,” DC, December 7, 1963; “Bishops, 29 Priests Support Rights Law,” CT, December 10, 1963; Doyle, “Conversation with Betty MacDonald,” 5–11; Doyle, “Conversation with John McGrath,” 26–33.
[iv] Brautigam, “Jam-Packed Rights Debate Is Vigorous But Orderly,” CT, December 11, 1963; Doyle, “Conversation with Betty MacDonald,” 12–17; Doyle, “Conversation with John McGrath,” 26–35.
[v] “Know Your Madisonian—Patrick J. Lucey,” WSJ, September 1, 1963; “City Realtors to Study Open Housing; Indicates Coolness to Ordinance,” CT, October 22,1963; Havens Wilber, “Local Realtors Urged to Draft Anti-Bias Policy,” CT, October 24, 1963; Kirkhorn, “Realtors Not Consulted on Bias Ads,” CT, December 7, 1963; “Fair Housing Unit Answers Realtors,” CT, December 9, 1963; “Realtors’ Role in Bias Hit by NAACP Official,” CT, December 10, 1963; John T. Aehl, “Debate on Rights Draws Big Crowd,” WSJ, December 11, 1963.
[vi] Gordon, “Keep Housing Section of Rights Bill Dies,” WSJ, December 11, 1963; John T. Aehl, “Debate on Rights Draws Big Crowd,” WSJ, December 11, 1963; Stu Chapman, “Housing Decision Postponed,” DC, December 11, 1963; Brautigam, “Rejects City Action on Housing Rights,” CT, December 11, 1963; Aehl, “CORE Bias-Testing Procedure Questioned at Council Hearing,” WSJ, December 12, 1963.
[vii] Feuerzeig, “Rights Backers Hunt for Key ‘Swing’ Vote,” CT, December 11, 1963; editorial, “The Council Agrees that ‘The World Is Built on Prejudice,’” CT, December 11, 1963; editorial, “Will Madison Labor Back Rohr’s Stand on Human Rights?” CT, December 12, 1963; editorial, “One Vote Could Remove Smear of Prejudice from Madison,” CT, December 12, 1963.
[viii] William Bradford Smith, interviewed by Lorraine Orchard, 1989, Historic Madison, Inc. Oral History Project. [Gordon, “More Support Hinted on Rights Law Tonight,” WSJ, December 12, 1963; Feuerzeig, “Housing Rights Compromise to Be Introduced,” CT, December 12, 1963; “Final Rights Vote Due Today,” DC, December 12, 1963; Gordon, “More Support Hinted on Rights Law Tonight,” WSJ, December 12, 1963.
[ix] “Rapid-Fire Action on New Law Has City Hall Picking Up Pieces,” WSJ, December 13, 1963; McGrath, Historic Madison.
[x] Gordon, “Amended Rights Law OKd,” WSJ, December 13, 1963; “Amended Fair Housing Rule Passes,” DC, December 13, 1963; Brautigam, “Amended Housing Bias Ban Approved,” CT, December 13, 1963.
[xi] “Equal Rights Unit Named; Council Confirms Choices, WSJ, December 27, 1963.