Adding context to the story, racism fueled by the exit of jobs.
Not to dispute the author's experiences in the original diary but rather to add to the context. In the 1960s Milwaukee was a very segregated city. There was however a stable and growing Black working and middle class due to the large number of manufacturing jobs. The "ghetto" was miniscule compared to other northern manufacturing cities - it was the jobs NOT the welfare that drew African-Americans to the city. However due to the segregated nature of the city housing for the the Black blue collar workers was in short supply. Thus entered Fr. Groppi, a white Catholic priest who began a campaign for equal housing. These efforts, along with the bussing which followed, revealed the racism that many whites had (and often were not really aware of in their own natures). Previously several Black publications had referred to Milwaukee as a good place to live for African-Americans.
Starting with the governorship of Lee Dreyfus and extremely accelerated under Tommy Thompson's mulitple terms as governor Wisconsin turned to the right (especially Milwaukee where local coservative talk radio became dominate (Charlie Sykes) as did the Bradly Foundation- funder of ultra right causes and books). These elements combined to create a tax bonanza for corporations. The ironic result was that manufacuturing left Milwaukee as happened during the same time period in most cities. Much of Milwaukee's factory work was on the north side where the black working class often lived in single family bungalows on tree lined streets. During Thompson's terms approx 70,000 jobs left the northside of Milwaukee alone. Guess what followed, unemployment and then crack came to town and in a few years two northside neighborhoods had an infant mortality rate higher than the Dominican Republic! So the late '70s and1980s saw the development of one of the most economically depressed and growing ghettos in America. Parts of it a few years ago made up some of the most dangerous streets in the country. JOBS JOBS JOBS
Mayor Barret (sp?) has made great strides (he got 80% of the vote) but faces problems that were left to fester for far too long. Of course many whites were freaked out as the face of crime on the nightly news and on talk radio became increasingly black and the national turn to the right helped people forget to look for the causes rather than merely address the symptoms.
addendum:
I'm not sure how many Kossacks know that Milwaukee was the last major American city to have a Socialist mayor-yes he ran as a Socialist and served as mayor from 1948-1960 see http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/...