As a child, Brian Verdin spent hours playing on the basketball courts and ice rink at Lindbergh Park.
Until he got older, he paid little attention to who the park was named after. Then the name of the park became problematic.
“I was aware of the Spirit of St. Louis, of the film, and that (Charles) Lindbergh was an aviator, but never that he was a Nazi sympathizer,” Verdin said.
So he was thrilled when the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression took steps to rename the park after one of the organization’s original founders, Lucille Berrien. For Verdin, who has known Berrien for 50 years and co-founded the alliance with her in 1973, the homage fits a woman he described as a freedom fighter.
“We had so many fights,” said Verdin. “Lucille and I go back to the anti-war era, the days of open house marches and the days of the free Angela Davis. So I was fully there. “
Numerous residents, political officials and several members of Berrien’s extended family attended the name unveiling ceremony on Saturday at Lucille Berrien Park, 3629 N. 16th St.
Also in attendance was Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Sixth District Ald. Milele A. Coggs, Milwaukee District Fourth District overseer, Ryan Clancy, and 17th District Supreme Moore Omokunde, who also brought greetings from United States Representative Gwen Moore.
“I just want to thank everyone who is here and those who are not out here,” said 93-year-old Berrien, who was in a wheelchair on that lively, sunny afternoon. “I never expected this, but I’m proud to have it. And I am grateful that this park is named after me and taken from the name of this German. “
During the event, Berrien was presented with several resolutions and citations from county, city and state officials for their tireless work.
Many well-known Berrien sponsored 120 children and praised their work in the city’s open apartment marches to eradicate racial segregation.
More:How far has Milwaukee come since the 1967 civil rights marches?
More:The Milwaukee Open House marches reached 200 straight days in 1968 – and continued – in 1968
She has been recognized for her work on the welfare rights of countless single mothers and for her participation in the Welfare Mothers’ March from Milwaukee to Madison in 1969 to protest funding cuts and for leading the Milwaukee Committee for Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential candidacy .
That same year, Berrien became the first black woman to run for mayor of Milwaukee, but lost to Mayor Henry Maier.
Milwaukee County Supervisor Priscilla Coggs-Jones was instrumental in getting the park renamed Berrien. She presented the resolution to the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, which she passed unanimously in June. It was the first proposal Coggs-Jones tabled since winning a special election in April for the 10th district seat.
“Not only was it something that had to be done because we definitely want to redress the wrong, but it was also something personal to me,” said Coggs-Jones, who also presented a decision to Berrien.
Coggs-Jones met Berrien a few years ago through her grandmother Marcia Coggs because of their shared concern for the well-being of a child in the neighborhood and called it an honor to draft the resolution.
Support for a name change was easy, she said, noting that board members already knew Lindbergh’s story, which did not represent the area where the park is located at the heart of a black community.
The park was named after Lindbergh when he made the first solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in 1927. The aviator stopped in Milwaukee during a press meeting to promote the feat.
However, Lindbergh later became spokesman for the America First Committee, an isolationist group that wanted to keep the US out of World War II. He also accused Jews of misleading the American public about the severity of the Nazi Party.
Renaming the park is in line with other national and international efforts to remove racist monuments from public spaces, said Alan Chavoya, the alliance’s outreach chair. After years of inactive, the organization was re-established last year to continue fighting the police brutality.
“Part of the reckoning in this country with this legacy is that these things are still unfolding even though people think it is in the past,” he said. “Racism has not gone away. It is something that we are constantly and actively engaged in and with which we have to struggle. “
The alliance campaigned in the neighborhood to gauge support for the renaming and whether people know the park’s namesake. Some knew and some didn’t, said Chavoya. People become more open to the idea after learning about Lindbergh’s story and hearing about Berrien’s work of helping the poor and other oppressed people in the city. They collected more than 200 signatures for the park to be renamed.
“Milwaukee deserves these parks (and) these monuments named after the city’s heroes,” he said. “There are many people in Milwaukee history who have gone unrecognized, whose history is overshadowed by other people, and unfortunately we see this a lot with our Black and Latinx heroes.”
Faithe Colas, one of Berrien’s many grandchildren, was thrilled that the community and city guides recognized her grandmother’s work.
“It is good for the fellowship at this time to see that there are older elders who have paved the way for us to a better life and shown us the way to do things,” she said.
She learned a lot from her grandmother, especially the nuances of antiquity. She followed her grandmother into the legal profession but went a different route, working more behind the scenes for family strengthening organizations and in newspapers for 20 years covering all the good work done by people like her grandmother have done.
“My grandmother is very radical. That’s not my style, ”said Colas. “She always said you had to get out into the community. We just went a different way. We wanted the same thing. We wanted social justice for our people, for poor people, for other diverse communities. How we get there is different. “
The fact that the park now bears the name of a woman who has endured political and racial oppression rather than someone who held those views is Dr. Sandra E. Jones, author of the book, Voices of Milwaukee Bronzeville, a story-telling book that has not escaped the notice of the people who helped shape the city’s Bronzeville community.
“Lucille kicked Nazis’ asses all her life,” said Jones, who met Berrien at 16.
It was her lobbying around the Free Angela Davis campaign that drew the teenager to Berrien. She called Berrien a role model for her activism to end apartheid in South Africa and her involvement in the anti-war movement.
“One of the things this work shows is how all of these … struggles are interrelated and really come under the umbrella of the struggle for justice. And that’s her whole life, ”said Jones.
“The backbone of all progress are the unsung heroes – the people who are not recognized. It is important to bring them to light. We wouldn’t be here without them. Without people like Lucille Berrien we would not be able to do what we do. “
Comments are closed.