Nicolas Lampert and Paul Kjelland 

Fair Housing Now 

Screen print

2013.2.23 

Today we bring you a bit of history on protesting and marching in Milwaukee.  

This print depicts a scene of the Milwaukee Commandos during the fair housing marches based on a photograph by Ben Hernandez from 1967.  The Milwaukee Commandos were a group of mostly young Black men that formed as part of the NAACP Youth Council in 1966. In 1967, they created their own organization away from the Youth Council, deciding to focus “on summer job programs for inner city youth and mentoring programs for community members recently released from state youth correctional facilities.” (from Lampert’s blogpost below) During the 200 consecutive nights of the fair housing marches from August 1967 to March 1968, the Commandos protected marchers from racist white mobs and police brutality as they marched for fair and non-discriminatory housing practices to be implemented into law. Although the marches secured the passing of the Fair Housing Law in 1968, Milwaukee’s deeply entrenched redlining of the city (which is shown here in the faint overlay of a map of Milwaukee) that occurred in the 1930s perpetuated segregation then and continues to perpetuate segregation today. Learn more about the Commandos here, the open housing marches here, the exhibition this print came from here, and redlining in Milwaukee here. 

This print was created by UWM professor Nicolas Lampert and Paul Kjelland for the Milwaukee Commandos show at INOVA in 2012. Both Lampert and Kjelland are part of the Justseeds Artist cooperative which is “committed to social, environmental, and political engagement” and protest through art. You can check them out at justseeds.org