Kickstarter

From the 1950s through the 1970s the City of Milwaukee was a key setting in the movement towards equality and civil rights in America. This project was born from a group of students who, when learning about the tragedies and heroics of the civil rights movement in the south, asked the question - "What about our city?"

This Arts @ Large educational project is a close collaboration with activists, artists, teachers and students to develop a walking and virtual tour of the City of Milwaukee.

Three 8-12th grade Milwaukee Public Schools will have the opportunity to work side-by-side with individuals instrumental in Milwaukee's Civil Rights Movement. Students will be investigative researchers using community interviews and primary resources from UW-Milwaukee’s rich March on Milwaukee digital archive to trace the historical significance. Students will then work closely with local activists and artists to create poetry, photography, film, visual art and a multitude of creative responses - culminating in the development of a student-led Civil Rights walking tour of the city, a digital map tour (including examples of their artistic creations,) as well as a gallery exhibit open to the public. 

From the Archives Department, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Libraries and Wisconsin Historical Society.

The student's artwork and writings will be uploaded into an interactive map which will allow them to share their findings with the broader community.  Students will be trained as docents to lead community members on the walking tour, where participants will also have opportunities to engage in workshops to learn investigative research through a variety of art forms.

UW-M, C-GIS, 2007

Since this is a community-based project, we invite the national community to join us in bringing this program to life! Your support will help students create a interactive digital map, and a printed version for walking tours, which will immortalize their work and allow their investigative research to be shared with the world. 

Our next step is to create a mobile application using GPS and QR codes that will fully integrate the walking and virtual tours - the possibilities are endless!!!

Do you have a story from this time period in Milwaukee that you would like to share? If so, please CLICK HERE. 

For more information about Arts @ Large, visit www.artsatlargeinc.org.

For more information about the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's March on MIlwaukee website, visit http://www4.uwm.edu/libraries/digilib/march/index.cfm