Mapping Racism and Resistance (MRR-MKE) represents the first effort to comprehensively document and map all racial covenants in Milwaukee County. The goal is to not only analyze and visualize the historical geographies of racial covenants, but also to uncover Black resistance to such discrimination and its impact in shaping racial justice movements today. By engaging Milwaukee County residents in the process of reading and analyzing racial covenants, this project brings the community directly into the process of documenting structural racism in Milwaukee in ways that will facilitate discussion about narratives about race, segregation, and inequality in the Milwaukee metropolitan area.
The long-term outcomes of the MRR-MKE project include (1) the creation of a website that will serve as a digital resource about racial covenants in Milwaukee County, (2) a collaboratively produced, interactive map that will visualize the historical and temporal geography of racial covenants in Milwaukee County and resistance to the covenants, and (3) the development of a digital resource on racial covenants made available for policymakers, community groups, and researchers interested in understanding current implications of past practices of housing discrimination.
They have worked with the following community organizations:
- The Redress Movement Milwaukee
- Bay Bridge Whitefish Bay
- Tosa Together
Members
- Anne Bonds (Faculty, Geography)
- Derek Handley (Faculty, English)
- Amber Chavez (Graduate Student, English)
- Tara Knight (Graduate Student, English)
- Yuchen Zhao (Graduate Student, Urban Studies Programs)