Oral+History+Reflection

For my oral history project, I interviewed my grandparents on all the events of the 1960s, focusing on the Milwaukee riots of 1967. The insight they offered into a turbulent decade was invaluable. From what they told me, I gathered that Milwaukee was no different than any other city during the civil rights movement. Inner city African Americans were trying to gain better housing and jobs, but there was no institutionalized segregation. For example, my grandfather said that when they moved to the suburbs, there were no black people. The climax of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee was the riots of July 1967. Fires were lit, firefighters couldn't extinquish them due to snipers, and food was hard to find. My grandmother said that they couldn't even get food because stores were closed and my grandfather didn't go to work for a day or two. The ironic thing was that they weren't even sure what started it because they were fairly removed from it, something that I would imagine was pretty common during the 1960s, especially the Vietnam War. One thing that amazed me was that there were missile sites all throughout the city. The riots weren't all bad though; they opened up people's eyes to the civil rights movement and helped people to see the danger in discrimination, instead of dismissing it as a Southern problem. Unfortunately, I didn't learn much about John F. Kennedy's assassination or the space race that I didn't already know.