Dr. Richard Harris and His Book ‘Growing Up Black in South Madison: The Great Madison Migration (Part 2 of 2)
Dr. Richard Harris with photos of his mom and dad who were “pioneers” in South Madison.
by Jonathan Gramling
For over 100 years, the area known as the Greenbush or the Triangle was a place where new arrivals to Madison settled down and started to develop roots. It was the area bounded by Regent Street, Park Street and W. Washington Ave., but also extended into parts of the Vilas Neighborhood before the growth of the medical community there caused thruways like Mound Street to be interrupted.
Neighborhood House was a community institution, a place where the new arrivals could find services and assistance in integrating into Madison.
It was composed of owner-occupied and rental units primarily occupied by African American, Jewish and Italian families. It also contained a number of neighborhood businesses including restaurants, taverns and hair salons. It was a tight knit, relatively low-income community.
According to Dr. Richard Harris, the long-time Madison resident and author of “Growing Up Black in South Madison,” there were three areas that Blacks were allowed to live.
“There was a program called redlining going on,” Harris said. “Back in those days, we didn’t know what redlining was. Through redlining, Black people could only live in three areas in the city of Madison. One area was on the near east side on Mifflin Street where the first Black church was, St. Paul AME Church. Area number two was the W. Washington Ave. area. And area number three was South Madison.”
While the city of Madison prided itself as an egalitarian city, perhaps it was the relatively low number of people of color at the time that allowed it to pretend that it was different as it related to race relations.
“I describe a city where some White inhabitants have treated their Black brothers and sisters in a most discriminatory and racist fashion,” Harris said in the forward of his book. “I feel that most Whites whom I knew or had contact with were fair-minded people. I further state, however, there were some Whites that I know personally or had heard of who are some of the most brutally racist White people I knew.”
In Harris’s view, things started to change for the people living in the Triangle after World War II.
“Around 1947, the alderman talked about how ‘those people’ had the good life down there,” Harris said.
“‘They have a beautiful park,’ he said. ‘And the thing that I don’t like about it is when you come into Madison from out-of-town and you come up Park Street and then go up W. Washington Ave., you see a group of Negroes, Italians and Jews.’ He used derogatory language when he described them. ‘Why should we as White people not have the good life that they have. They have a beautiful park and a beautiful playground.’”
Indeed the Triangle was prime real estate with its proximity to Brittingham Park, the Capitol Square and UW-Madison.
“At the same time, economic developers were looking at that area so that they could build apartments,” Harris said. “UW-Madison was thinking about taking over a lot of property because it was also growing. To make a long story short, the city of Madison had an agency called The Madison Redevelopment Authority. They were supposed to develop areas in Madison. The first two areas they chose were South Madison and the W. Washington Ave. area. Somehow, they decided to go for the W. Washington Ave. area first because if they removed all of the Black people, they could move to South Madison. That was their thinking. And they made a tremendous mistake and they realized it afterwards.”
The plans that the outside actors began formulating for the Triangle didn’t include the families who lived there. But they weren’t able to just force them to relocate.
“However, they couldn’t just summarily uproot people,” Harris said. “So they got money from the federal government through a program called Urban Renewal. And the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development said, ‘Yeah, we’ll help you. But if you buy property from these Black, Italian and Jewish families, you are going to have to give them what the property is worth and you’re also going to help relocate them if they aren’t going to stay there.’ HUD said, ‘Why don’t you just enhance the neighborhood — bring it up to speed — and let those people just live there.’ That was the beginning lie because the city of Madison said, ‘We’ll do that. We’ll just enhance the neighborhood and they can stay there.’ They had no thought of really enhancing the neighborhood and letting those people live there.”
And so the process of what some people euphemistically call “Urban Removal” began.
“The city of Madison with federal dollars hired three neighborhood relocation workers,” Harris said. “And they were supposed to go out and talk with the families and ask them if they wanted to stay there or they wanted to move. If they decided to move, the city would buy their property and they could just be on their way. Racist lie number one came when the relocation workers never showed up. They were hired, but they helped very few Black, Italian and Jewish families down there. Lie number two was they began to underestimate the value of the properties.”
