Urban League 40th Anniversary Celebration
The context of the times
The context of the times
Hill feels that UW-Whitewater is effective in enrolling, retaining and graduating African American students. But it went through a baptism of fire in order to
get to that point. “They beat us out of town one year,” Hill recalled about African American students at Whitewater in the late 1960s. “I was working there one
summer in the Upward Bound program,” Hill recalled. “The kids in the city and the kids in the program clashed at a Dairy Queen. They called in the Walworth
and Jefferson sheriffs.They whupped much butt. They tear gassed us. They whupped us into a dorm. Tear gassed us out of the dorm and whupped us into
another dorm. We got on the phone — there were only two phones in each hallway — because everyone was trying to call mommy and daddy. These were 8-
11 grade kids getting beat on by cops and stuff. And then they blocked off the community so that our families couldn’t come and get us. It was unreal. They
whupped us and ran us. We were able to get on Hwy. 12 and get to Madison. That’s part of my undergrad experience.”
Hill recalled a time on campus when White and Black students openly got into fights on campus. “Another time when the fraternities got to fighting out at
the gym and some of the guys went down to the fraternity house to get some support, went into the fraternity house and started fighting there,” Hill said.
“Someone pulled a gun and shot into the ceiling. That resulted in 8-9 of my classmates getting expelled and thrown off track. I think only 1-2 came back and
got their degrees. My first wife was teaching over in Ft. Atkinson while all this turmoil was going on and was threatened going to and from work. I was a senior by
this time and I was carrying a gun to class almost every day because I was threatened. ‘We got everyone else and we’re going to get you next because you’re
the bigmouth that’s left.’”
And there was a time when they almost did get him, when a major fire broke out on campus. “We had a big fire on campus and I was accused of being the
arsonist,” Hill recalled. “They knocked on the door. I went to open the door and it was the sheriff’s department. ‘You Joseph Hill? We need to see you.’ ‘For
what?’ ‘The fire marshall wants to see you.’ They took me over to the fire marshall, sat me down ion a room and asked ‘Do you want to make a statement why
you did it?’ I said ‘Did what?’ ‘We know you set that multimillion dollar fire. I have two eye witnesses who have named you.’ I said ‘No, I didn’t do it. That’s all I
can tell you.’ ‘Can you prove that you didn’t do it?’ I said ‘I was on the telephone watching it burn.’ ‘Who were you talking to?’ ‘Kwame Salter in Madison.’ ‘We’ll
check it out.’ My wife was pregnant so that would have had to have been around January 1970. This is what I mean by the times going on. Stuff like this takes a
person and shapes them and makes them into who they become. People don’t realize it, but that kind of stuff was going on around the time when the Urban
League was formed.”
As the country moved toward self-emollition, the country moved away from the precipice of violence during the 1970s. One reason is what happened to
many Black leaders at the time. “You have to remember during that decade right there, you had a lot of those folks who were on the scene killed while they
were on the scene,” Hill said. “Martin Luther King in 1968, Malcolm in 1965, Medgar Evers in 1963, Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1969. When you stood up and
you took a position and you were vociferous and you were perceived to be a threat by J. Edgar and the minions, in many instances, this is what the outcome
was.”
And in the view of Joseph Thomas, there was a change in leadership after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. “There were leaders who tried
to rise to the top of the heap after Martin Luther King’s assassination,” Thomas said. “But there’s only one king. I feel there was kind of a vacuum for a number of
years in terms of leadership among those who proclaimed themselves to be leaders. In terms of bringing together the masses, there was a distinct absence of
leadership from what I have seen. No one rose to the top, not Jesse Jackson or other political figures. I think maybe that was a problem, trying to become a
King. No one had the intelligence, the spirituality, the eloquence and the charisma to be the leader of that type of movement during the time that he was.
There was just an absence of leadership from the perspective of the Black community that rose to the top and was able to move the people to a higher level.”
Another reason was the leaders who were left became separated from the mass of Black people in many instances in more ways than just geography. “I see that
as part of the trickle down theory as part of the few African Americans success stories,” Thomas said. “They like their White counterparts have distanced
themselves from those African Americans who haven’t been as successful. We see them move to the suburbs and it’s almost like where they have come from
has been forgotten. I’m generalizing but you can drive through neighborhoods and see for yourself where the elite live and where they go to church and the
type of social organizations they belong to that are far removed from the people in the streets. There are some of the same attitudes of elitism in terms of ‘I
have mine so it is up to you to get yours.’ Previously, there was a ‘we’ attitude of fighting the struggle. There are those who feel they don’t have to struggle
anymore because they are not affected or impacted by it anymore. I think that is the biggest problem that I have observed because those who have become
successful are the ones better equipped to fight the battle than those who are less successful. Without a voice or the ability to influence decisions on a day-to-
day basis, then you are left with the crumbs left on the table. There’s a sense of abandonment not only by government, but also by some of our leaders as well.”
get to that point. “They beat us out of town one year,” Hill recalled about African American students at Whitewater in the late 1960s. “I was working there one
summer in the Upward Bound program,” Hill recalled. “The kids in the city and the kids in the program clashed at a Dairy Queen. They called in the Walworth
and Jefferson sheriffs.They whupped much butt. They tear gassed us. They whupped us into a dorm. Tear gassed us out of the dorm and whupped us into
another dorm. We got on the phone — there were only two phones in each hallway — because everyone was trying to call mommy and daddy. These were 8-
11 grade kids getting beat on by cops and stuff. And then they blocked off the community so that our families couldn’t come and get us. It was unreal. They
whupped us and ran us. We were able to get on Hwy. 12 and get to Madison. That’s part of my undergrad experience.”
Hill recalled a time on campus when White and Black students openly got into fights on campus. “Another time when the fraternities got to fighting out at
the gym and some of the guys went down to the fraternity house to get some support, went into the fraternity house and started fighting there,” Hill said.
“Someone pulled a gun and shot into the ceiling. That resulted in 8-9 of my classmates getting expelled and thrown off track. I think only 1-2 came back and
got their degrees. My first wife was teaching over in Ft. Atkinson while all this turmoil was going on and was threatened going to and from work. I was a senior by
this time and I was carrying a gun to class almost every day because I was threatened. ‘We got everyone else and we’re going to get you next because you’re
the bigmouth that’s left.’”
And there was a time when they almost did get him, when a major fire broke out on campus. “We had a big fire on campus and I was accused of being the
arsonist,” Hill recalled. “They knocked on the door. I went to open the door and it was the sheriff’s department. ‘You Joseph Hill? We need to see you.’ ‘For
what?’ ‘The fire marshall wants to see you.’ They took me over to the fire marshall, sat me down ion a room and asked ‘Do you want to make a statement why
you did it?’ I said ‘Did what?’ ‘We know you set that multimillion dollar fire. I have two eye witnesses who have named you.’ I said ‘No, I didn’t do it. That’s all I
can tell you.’ ‘Can you prove that you didn’t do it?’ I said ‘I was on the telephone watching it burn.’ ‘Who were you talking to?’ ‘Kwame Salter in Madison.’ ‘We’ll
check it out.’ My wife was pregnant so that would have had to have been around January 1970. This is what I mean by the times going on. Stuff like this takes a
person and shapes them and makes them into who they become. People don’t realize it, but that kind of stuff was going on around the time when the Urban
League was formed.”
As the country moved toward self-emollition, the country moved away from the precipice of violence during the 1970s. One reason is what happened to
many Black leaders at the time. “You have to remember during that decade right there, you had a lot of those folks who were on the scene killed while they
were on the scene,” Hill said. “Martin Luther King in 1968, Malcolm in 1965, Medgar Evers in 1963, Fred Hampton in Chicago in 1969. When you stood up and
you took a position and you were vociferous and you were perceived to be a threat by J. Edgar and the minions, in many instances, this is what the outcome
was.”
And in the view of Joseph Thomas, there was a change in leadership after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. “There were leaders who tried
to rise to the top of the heap after Martin Luther King’s assassination,” Thomas said. “But there’s only one king. I feel there was kind of a vacuum for a number of
years in terms of leadership among those who proclaimed themselves to be leaders. In terms of bringing together the masses, there was a distinct absence of
leadership from what I have seen. No one rose to the top, not Jesse Jackson or other political figures. I think maybe that was a problem, trying to become a
King. No one had the intelligence, the spirituality, the eloquence and the charisma to be the leader of that type of movement during the time that he was.
There was just an absence of leadership from the perspective of the Black community that rose to the top and was able to move the people to a higher level.”
Another reason was the leaders who were left became separated from the mass of Black people in many instances in more ways than just geography. “I see that
as part of the trickle down theory as part of the few African Americans success stories,” Thomas said. “They like their White counterparts have distanced
themselves from those African Americans who haven’t been as successful. We see them move to the suburbs and it’s almost like where they have come from
has been forgotten. I’m generalizing but you can drive through neighborhoods and see for yourself where the elite live and where they go to church and the
type of social organizations they belong to that are far removed from the people in the streets. There are some of the same attitudes of elitism in terms of ‘I
have mine so it is up to you to get yours.’ Previously, there was a ‘we’ attitude of fighting the struggle. There are those who feel they don’t have to struggle
anymore because they are not affected or impacted by it anymore. I think that is the biggest problem that I have observed because those who have become
successful are the ones better equipped to fight the battle than those who are less successful. Without a voice or the ability to influence decisions on a day-to-
day basis, then you are left with the crumbs left on the table. There’s a sense of abandonment not only by government, but also by some of our leaders as well.”
| Joseph Thomas was the board chair or the Madison Urban League (Since named Urban League of Greater Madison) from 1986-1991. |
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 3
On February 20, 1968, the Madison Urban League became an affiliate of the National
Urban League. A multicultural group of Madisonians from different faith communities established
the Urban League affiliate — which underwent a name change in the 1990s to the Urban
League of Greater Madison — to help the growing African American community become a part
of Madison.
And in many ways, the Urban League has undergone transformations during its history as the
context and dynamics of the local and national civil rights scenes changed over time and the
agency responded to that change or was changed by it. In commemoration of the Urban League’
s 40 year history, The Capital City Hues sat down with Joseph Thomas who was the board chair of
the Urban League from 1986-1991 and Joseph Hill who was the board secretary during roughly
that same period, to talk about the Urban League and the societal context it has found itself in.
The social change that came with this undeclared “Black revolution” didn’t come easy and on
some levels has never been completed. And in some places, that meant whole communities
experienced upheaval. Joseph Hill was a student at UW-Whitewater when it experienced the
turmoil during the confrontational environment of the 1960s.
Part 2 of 3
On February 20, 1968, the Madison Urban League became an affiliate of the National
Urban League. A multicultural group of Madisonians from different faith communities established
the Urban League affiliate — which underwent a name change in the 1990s to the Urban
League of Greater Madison — to help the growing African American community become a part
of Madison.
And in many ways, the Urban League has undergone transformations during its history as the
context and dynamics of the local and national civil rights scenes changed over time and the
agency responded to that change or was changed by it. In commemoration of the Urban League’
s 40 year history, The Capital City Hues sat down with Joseph Thomas who was the board chair of
the Urban League from 1986-1991 and Joseph Hill who was the board secretary during roughly
that same period, to talk about the Urban League and the societal context it has found itself in.
The social change that came with this undeclared “Black revolution” didn’t come easy and on
some levels has never been completed. And in some places, that meant whole communities
experienced upheaval. Joseph Hill was a student at UW-Whitewater when it experienced the
turmoil during the confrontational environment of the 1960s.