Highlights Archives
Lloyd Barbee: Fighting Segregation in Milwaukee Schools
August 17th is the birthday of Milwaukee's most famous school integration and civil rights activist, Lloyd Barbee. Born in Tennessee in 1925 and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, Barbee had already become involved with the NAACP and various political causes by the time he came to Milwaukee in 1962. At the heart of his activism, though, was his quest for equal educational opportunity for Milwaukee's black community.
Barbee founded the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC), which became the primary vehicle for his desegregation efforts and a class-action lawsuit against the city's school board. In 1963 Barbee led the NAACP's challenge to the Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS), demanding that school officials make stronger efforts to integrate the schools. When MPS refused to modify its school policy, the NAACP organized boycotts of MPS schools and operated "freedom schools" in their place. When that failed, Barbee filed a lawsuit to make the courts do what the school board would not.
From 1965 to 1976 Barbee struggled to integrate the city's public schools, a struggle that consumed thousands of hours of time and often left him working alone against a battery of MPS lawyers. Finally, in January of 1976, federal Judge John Reynolds ruled that Milwaukee Public Schools were indeed segregated unlawfully, prompting the Wisconsin Legislature to enact a program of school integration. Though not perfect, the court decision did begin to address some significant schooling issues in Milwaukee. Barbee continued to fight segregation and inequality in Milwaukee until his death in 2002.
The Society's archives holds Lloyd Barbee's papers, more than half of which consist of records and research material from the school desegregation case. The records are stored at the Milwaukee Area Research Center, located in the Golda Meir Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Barbee is also one of the featured figures in the "Political Arena" display on the fourth floor of the Wisconsin Historical Museum in Madison.
In 1992 the Wisconsin Advisory Committee issued a report on the effects of the desegregation program implemented after Barbee's victory and its impact on the quality of education received by students in Milwaukee. More information about the civil rights and desegregation struggle, including firsthand accounts, books, manuscripts and survey results, are available at Turning Points in Wisconsin History.
:: Posted August 17, 2005
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