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 Sta