Vel Phillips is a trailblazer for Women and Blacks
Wisconsin's "First" Lady

 By Jonathan Gramling

 Part  1 of 3

    A little girl sits in the dark on the back stairway with her sister as their parents as the voices from their parents’ party in the front living room filter through.
Through all of the chatter, comes a commanding voice. It was an eloquent voice that made people want to listen to it. His name was James W. Dorsey and
he was a lawyer. The little girl on the back stairs could tell that people gave him respect. And she made up her mind that she would become a lawyer one
day too.
    That little girl grew up to become a lawyer and blazed a trail across Wisconsin for women and African Americans.
    Vel Phillips was that little girl and during her lifetime, she has racked up an impressive list of ‘firsts’ that she has accomplished: First African American
woman to graduate from the UW Law School, the first woman and the first African American elected to the Milwaukee Common Council, the first African
American in the U.S. elected to the National Committee of either of the two major political parties, the first African American to serve in Wisconsin’s judiciary
and the first African American elected to any statewide office in Wisconsin. People speculate she has forgotten some of the ‘firsts’ that she achieved.
    Phillips didn’t set out to achieve such heights. She just set out to live her life as she saw fit. And becoming a lawyer and commanding the respect of others
was really attractive to her. One day, she was sitting in the kitchen with her mother — a stay-at-home mom in a two parent home — and the subject came up
of what Phillips wanted to be when she grew up. “She said ‘Well your sister is going into nutrition,’” Phillips said during an interview with The Capital City
Hues. “’She’s going to be a dietician. Have you thought about what you want to do?’ And my mother was always very encouraging, no matter what we did.’
She said ‘Have you decided what you want to do?’ I was very young, about 9-10 years old. I said ‘I’d like to be a lawyer, just like Mr. Dorsey.’ She looked very
surprised and said ‘A lawyer?’ She looked sort of perplexed. Right away, it made me feel that I couldn’t be a lawyer. So I said ‘Can I be a lawyer?’ She said
‘Well, you can be a lawyer, but there aren’t that many women lawyers. It’s mostly for men. It’s a man’s field. Doctors and lawyers are usually men.’ I asked her
‘Does that mean I can’t because I am a girl?’ She replied ‘You can if you really want it. But it might be hard.’ Hard didn’t bother me, so I said ‘Well, what do I
have to do?’ She said ‘Well, all of you girls have to finish college. So you have to go to college and graduate from college. After you graduate, you have to
go several more years to be a lawyer.’ She knew doctors and lawyers were professionals and they had to study longer, so she explained that to me. She was
still sort of doubtful. But after we finished our conversation, she said to me ‘If that’s really what you want, then that is what you should be.’ I told her that is what
I wanted. And that is the only thing I know that I wanted.”
    Even at that early age, Phillips was full of determination and seemed to have feminist yearnings. “I did not plan to marry,” Phillips who was then Velvelia
Rodgers. “I was dead set against getting married because my mother waited on my father hand and foot. I thought that if I was married, then I have to take
care of him like you would a child. I wasn’t going to have that.”
    Phillips grew up in Milwaukee during the 1920s and early 1930s before the major push of the Great Migration reached Milwaukee. She had grown up in a
predominantly Euro-American environment and so, she wanted to attend a historically Black college to gain that experience. So she set her sights on Howard
University in Washington, D.C. Her mother was dead set against it, offering up the prohibitive cost as the reason. Phillips got her mother to promise that if she
got a scholarship to let her go. Her mother agreed not thinking that Phillips would actually get the scholarship. Well, true to form, Phillips won a four-year
tuition and books scholarship to Howard and told her mother the good news. “She still said ‘No,’” Phillips exclaimed. “My mother didn’t figure extra information
was due. I said ‘But you promised.’ She had never read Dr. Spock where if you make a promise to a child, you try to keep the promise. She just said ‘No!’ and
that was it. I said ‘Mom, but you promised.’ And so she said ‘Well, when you get to be a mother, you can break your promises. I had to make a decision based
on what I think is the best thing for you. And I want you to be close to home and Howard University will cost far more than the University of Wisconsin. Howard
is a private school and it’s far away and you couldn’t come home for holidays.’ She just had several reasons against it. So I was crushed.”
    Since there were three girls in the family and no boys, Phillips’ parents had decided among themselves that her mother would be the disciplinarian and
regimentarian for the girls. But her father would still pay attention to what was going on and would sometimes intervene on the girls’ behalf without
undermining their mother’s authority.
   The decision on Phillips going to Howard was one of those occasions. “I heard them talking and I heard my father say ‘Well, I think she would be okay,’”
Phillips said. “’You did promise.’ He didn’t say much to us, but when they discussed things, he was always kind of on our side. He said ‘She’s so disappointed
and she worked so hard.’ I had won an oratorical contest to get this scholarship. ‘I really think you should think about it.’ The reason I’m going into detail is this
really shaped my life. So my mother said ‘I’ll think about it.’ He said ‘I think she’ll remain a ‘sweet’ girl. Just because she would be going off to Howard, doesn’t
mean she wouldn’t remain a ‘sweet’ girl.’ I knew what that meant. She said ‘I’ll think about it.’ He would stand up and I could see him fold the paper. This was
in the breakfast room. She liked to play Solitaire. He would be reading the paper and they would be having coffee. And we were supposed to be upstairs. But
my sister and I would be listening. My father said ‘I don’t think you will have to worry about her. She did get a scholarship that pays her tuition and her books.’”
    Her mom thought about it for a week and had a talk with Phillips. “My mother said ‘Your father has been talking to me and he thinks that I should reconsider
letting you go to Howard,’” Phillips recalled. “If you go, you can’t go back and forth. And she named all of the holidays. But I will sacrifice to see that you can
go. But other than Christmas, you will have to stay in Washington, D.C. But if I let you go to Howard, there are three very important rules that you must follow.
If you are willing to follow those rules, then I will think about letting you go.’ I was willing to do anything. I asked her what the rules were. She said ‘It may be
difficult.’ I said ‘What?’ She said ‘First of all, there will be no smoking of any kind until you graduate. When you graduate, if you care to smoke, that will be up
to you.’
    She was talking about cigarettes. She didn’t think a lady should smoke. She didn’t even talk about the health issue because at that time, no one had put
two and two together. So she just thought it wasn’t lady like to smoke. I didn’t smoke, so I didn’t see it as being difficult. So I said ‘There will be no smoking.’
And then she said ‘And the second rule is there will no alcoholic beverage of any kind. No beer, no wine, nothing.’ And I said ‘Until I graduate, right?’ And
she said ‘Right.’ And I didn’t drink then. I had no idea it would be difficult, that they had these parties and there would be liquor and stuff. So I said ‘Oh, that’s
fine.’ And so I thought these things were easy. I had heard her say to my oldest sister and then to me and then to my youngest sister later on some advice. ‘If
you are in an automobile with a young man and he starts driving east toward the lake, then you straighten your back, sit up straight up in the car because he is
up to no good.’ I said ‘Mom, maybe he is going to the store or something or a restaurant.’ She replied ‘If he is going east toward the lake, beware.’ The third
thing she said was ‘Now in Washington, D.C., there will not be Lake Michigan where things happen. But there will be a place like Lake Michigan. And if a
young man starts going that way, no matter where it is, then beware, because you must remain a ‘sweet’ girl.’ I had heard her talk about a ‘sweet’ girl, so I knew
what that meant. And I said ‘Until I graduate.’ And she said ‘No, until you marry.’ Since I didn’t know anything about sex, that didn’t seem hard. I said ‘Okay,
that’s fine with me.’ I was willing to agree to everything. In a sense, to this day as we speak, it shaped my whole adult outlook. I never had any alcoholic
beverages of any kind. And I never smoked. That’s the truth.”

Next: Howard University, marriage and the beginnings of political involvement
 
Above: At 84 years old, Vel Phillips is still actively
engaged in Milwaukee’s African American
community