Margaret Rozga was born and raised in Milwaukee’s South Side. She joined the Milwaukee NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council during the 1960s. During her time studying at Alverno College, she became involved in the emerging civil rights movement, and in the summer of 1965, she joined a group of Milwaukee volunteers to work on a SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) summer voter registration project in rural Alabama. Rozga participated in the protests against the Eagles Club in 1966 and also the open housing marches of 1967-1968. In 1976, she married former Youth Council advisor, James Groppi, and they had three children.
In 2007, Rozga led efforts to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the open housing marches. She has written non-fiction, poetry, and a play about Milwaukee civil rights. Currently, she is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha. EM
See also: citations for her works in the bibliography