{image1} Milwaukee has earned its share of national media coverage lately, but even the world at large has been paying attention to race relations and politics in our town.
On May 15, England's respected newspaper The Guardian ran an in-depth article in its weekend magazine supplement about race and politics in Milwaukee with the headline "A Promise Not Kept."
Written by black British journalist Gary Younge, the article carried this sub-headline, "In 1954, the US supreme court outlawed segregated schools in a landmark case that gave rise to the civil rights movement. Fifty years on, Gary Younge visits Milwaukee, the most divided city in the US, to examine its legacy."
Younge, the author of the book "No Place Like Home, A Black Briton's Journey Through The American South," traces desegregation in America and especially in Milwaukee and ends up -- logically -- at this year's divisive mayoral campaign.
He writes of a visit to an Afrocentric school, of Father James Groppi's involvement in the Civil Rights movement here and quotes the president of Jack and Jill, a group of African American mothers and children, Ida Younge (although never mentioning whether he is related to her).
For the story Younge interviewed a diverse group of Milwaukeeans, from Dennis Conta to radio host Keith Murphy to historian John Gurda to former mayor John Norquist to Jerry Ann Hamilton, president of the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP.
Although this isn't the sort of article many Milwaukeeans want the world to read about their hometown, Younge presents a well-researched story, and he is able to use Milwaukee as a microcosm of the failures and successes of desegregation and the state of race relations in America.
You can read Younge's article online at guardian.co.uk.
The Guardian, in fact, can't quite get enough Milwaukee, it seems. Three days after Younge's article, Milwaukee's school voucher program was cited in an article about Tory support of a voucher program for U.K. schools. Four days after that, the paper wrote about Milwaukee native Tom Kurth, who has made a new home for himself in Polynesia. On May 27, The Guardian used Milwaukee as an example in a story about road markings and their potential connection to automobile accidents. On June 1, an article about "The Lord of the Rings" mentioned the Tolkien archives, housed at Marquette University.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
