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BIOGRAPHY WRITTEN BY

Becky Marburger, PBS Wisconsin Education��EDITED BY�Tanya Schmidt, Oshkosh Area School District, Oshkosh, WI

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First edition ©2014. Revised edition ©2021 Wisconsin Educational Communications Board and The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

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History is full of ‘firsts’. Jean Nicolet was the first European to explore Wisconsin in 1634. Electa Quinney became Wisconsin’s first public school teacher in 1828. George Poage grew up in Wisconsin and became the first African American to win a medal in the Olympic Games in 1904. Each of these people made history because they did something first, and their ‘firsts’ changed the lives of people who came after them. Vel Phillips made history with her many ‘firsts’, and her actions improved the lives of people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the United States.�

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Vel Rodgers Phillips (1953). Image courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. WHi-92286.

Velvalea (vel-va-leeah) Hortense Rodgers was born on February 18, 1924. She lived with her parents and two sisters on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Her mother, Thelma, told her daughters to follow their dreams, and Vel’s dream was to become a lawyer.

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Thelma also wanted her daughters to all get a good education so they could achieve those dreams. Vel went to Garfield Avenue Elementary, then Roosevelt Junior High, and then North Division High, a mostly white school. She graduated from high school in 1942 and went on to college at Howard University, a historically black research university in Washington, DC, and graduated in 1946.

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Vel earned a college scholarship when she won a public speaking contest during high school. Image courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries. 2006.

After college, Vel went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. At a party, Vel met �Dale Phillips and called it “love at first sight.” They were married not long after. The couple had two sons named Michael and Dale.

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Vel teamed up with political activists such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) members. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. WHi-101431.

In 1951, Vel achieved one of her big ‘firsts’. She became the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School. This ‘first’ would pave the way for others.

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After graduating, Vel moved back to Milwaukee. There, she saw schools that were still mostly segregated. Sometimes Black students were being bussed to schools with white students, but made to stay in separate spaces. What’s more, Black students were put into different classes than white students, which affected the jobs they might get after school. Vel wanted to change this, so she ran for the Milwaukee School Board. She lost the election, but she did not let that discourage her. She continued to speak out for equal rights at School Board meetings.

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election (n): the act of choosing someone by voting

�equal rights (n): the same treatment for all people

Vel made history again in 1956, when she became the first woman and the first African American elected to the Milwaukee Common Council. As a member of the Common Council, she worked hard to pass laws that treated all people fairly, and �she worked on clean air laws for Milwaukee. She also took �part in national civil rights events, including the historic 1963 March on Washington.

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civil rights (n): rights or privileges that all citizens of a country have according to law��march (n): a rally; a group of people walking together in support of a cause

The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies in United States history. Image from the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, NYWT&S Collection, LC-DIG-ppmsca-03130.

Vel kept working for equal rights, and became famous for her role in the fight for fair housing in Milwaukee. At that time, people of color could not buy or rent houses in some parts of the city, because some landlords and real estate agents would discriminate against them. So in 1962, Vel introduced the Phillips Housing Ordinance to make housing discrimination illegal in Milwaukee. The Common Council voted it down, but Vel would not take no for an answer. She presented the bill three more times between 1963 and 1967. It was defeated each time.�

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bill (n): a proposed law; if legislators vote to pass a bill then it becomes a law�

discriminate, discrimination (n): different treatment of people because of their race, religion, gender, etc.

Those defeats only made her more determined to stop housing discrimination. To show how much it mattered to her, she walked with Father James Groppi and hundreds of young people in a peaceful march across Milwaukee’s 16th Street Bridge in 1967. She and 137 other people were arrested a few weeks later for their actions. But that didn’t stop her. More marches and protests followed.

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Eventually, all the legal action and protest by the people of Milwaukee worked. The Common Council passed the Fair Housing Law on April 30, 1968, six years after Vel first proposed it.

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Fair Housing Law (n): a law that makes it illegal to prevent people from living where they choose because of their race

Vel left the Common Council in 1971. The governor of Wisconsin made her a judge on the Milwaukee Children’s Court. This was another of Vel’s ‘firsts’—she was the first woman judge in Milwaukee, and the first African American judge in Wisconsin.

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Then, Vel went on to become the first woman and first African American elected to be secretary of state in Wisconsin, and she served as governor during times when the governor and lieutenant governor were away.

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(From left to right) Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus, Lieutenant Governor Russell Olsen, Secretary of State Vel Phillips, Treasurer Charles Smith, Superintendent of Public Instruction Barbara Thompson, and Attorney General Bronson La Follette. Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. WHi-55020.

governor (n): the top executive official of a state in the United States

Vel’s husband, Dale died unexpectedly in 1988. This loss hurt her deeply, but she continued to help others. She helped Gwendolynne Moore become Wisconsin’s first African American (and second female) Congresswoman. She also volunteered to help build a statue in Milwaukee of Joshua Glover, a formerly enslaved person who was able to find freedom in the north.

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In 2006, she received the Robert and Belle Case La Follette Award for Distinction in Public Service. That year, she also created the Vel Phillips Foundation to promote social justice, education, and equal housing. She continued to give speeches to school, church, and women’s groups and she sang about peace and equal rights with a group called The Raging Grannies.

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Vel earned an honorary degree from Marquette University on May 20, 2007. Photo courtesy of Marquette University.

Vel Phillips helped give people in the city of Milwaukee the right to live where they wanted. She opened doors that had been closed to women and African Americans. Her ‘firsts’ made history, and more importantly, they made life better for people in Wisconsin and across the United States.

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Vel accomplished many firsts, and she made history. How might you make history of your own? Image from Voces de la Frontera. Flickr. 2007.

Quotes retrieved from: Miner, Barbara. “Valiant Lady Vel.” Milwaukee Magazine. 08 11 2007: n. page. Web. 13 Sep. 2013.

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