North Division High School had always been a staple in Milwaukee’s Black community.
But a Jan. 19, 1976, order by federal Judge John Reynolds for Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate almost changed that.
The ruling led MPS to propose changes three years later with the goal to integrate the 97% Black North Side high school.
The solution? Close North Division as the neighborhood knew it and reopen it as a citywide magnet school for medical and science technology. Magnet schools offer special instruction and programs that are typically not available elsewhere.
The district had utilized a similar strategy in the years prior to integrate Rufus King High School and Golda Meir School by changing them to magnet schools.
The proposal for North Division would integrate the school by drawing more white students from other parts of the city but would also limit enrollment options for students in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Residents quickly fought back, organizing the Coalition to Save North Division.
Howard Fuller, who led the coalition, remembers the community’s reaction when the plan was first announced.
“We ended up filling up the auditorium at the board meeting at Central Office,” said Fuller, who went on to become superintendent of MPS from 1991 to 1995. “That’s when I gave the speech and ended by saying ‘enough is enough.’ That then became the slogan for the Coalition to Save North.”
Fuller said the group organized marches and meetings, canvassed across the neighborhood and eventually took legal action and won.
Lawyer and politician Lloyd Barbee, among others, filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Public School Board of Directors in 1965 to desegregate MPS, Milwaukee historian and author James Nelsen said.
The suit alleged that the district’s policy of assigning students to their neighborhood school maintained school segregation because of the widespread residential segregation across the city.
The case ran until 1976, when Reynolds ruled that Milwaukee Public Schools needed to take action to desegregate the district.
Reynolds then established a monitoring board to enforce and oversee districtwide desegregation plans.
Nelsen said shortly before the ruling, the Board of Directors welcomed new Superintendent Lee McMurrin, who had implemented magnet schools in Toledo, Ohio.
Once he came to Milwaukee, McMurrin pushed to rebrand some neighborhood high schools as magnet schools, encouraging students from across the city to go to different schools.
When a new North Division building opened in 1978, the district tried attracting white students to the school but was unsuccessful.
This, in combination with low performing grades at the school, led McMurrin to target North Division to become the city’s newest magnet school. The school would open a medical and science technology program for high schoolers across the city.
“We’re not satisfied with the results at North Division,” McMurrin said in a 1979 Milwaukee Sentinel article. “We will not have a change about unless we make it a brand new school.”
Fuller, students and the neighborhood had major concerns about the new plan.
“The thing that concerned me the most was that once they built the brand-new building, then the first thing they were going to do then was to put all of the neighborhood kids out,” Fuller said. “In part, it was also a pushback against the way that desegregation was being implemented in the city at that time.”
North Division’s student council organized a rally in which 400 students walked out of school and marched to the Central Office in protest, according to local news reports.
The plan would close enrollment to freshmen and sophomores. Willie Washington, then a North Division junior, spoke out against the plan during the protest.
“We feel that we should not be used as guinea pigs for integration,” Washington told the Milwaukee Journal.
Fuller said the coalition spent the summer going door to door in the neighborhood, held community meetings and built a parent group.
When the new school year started in September 1979, Fuller and over 200 students gathered for a mass meeting on North Division’s front lawn. Fuller told students to study hard and “demand that they be educated.”
After months of protesting, Fuller said, the coalition escalated to legal action through the monitoring board, established to observe desegregation efforts.
Fuller said the Board of Directors eventually reached an out-of-court settlement and dropped the plan.
“It was the first battle where the board reversed its decision on closing a school in the Black community because all of the protests before had never gained any traction,” Fuller said.
The school would remain a neighborhood school but also offer a career specialty program, according to the settlement.
The agreement said the school should aim for about 2,000 students, 60% Black and 40% white. A set number of seats would be set aside for non-Black students, and Black students could not fill those spots.
As those changes were implemented, problems at North Division High School continued, Fuller said.
Fuller said nobody knew he would eventually become a superintendent of MPS. When he took on the role in 1991, he gained access to documents and information nobody thought he would see.
An assistant superintendent at the time told him that the board had taken actions to sabotage North Division after the coalition won.
“Some of the problems that exist at North today can be traced back to the conscious attempt to sabotage North once we won in court,” Fuller said. “There was such anger on the part of the administration that they had to do this.”
For example, Fuller said the coalition worked with North Division Principal Bob Jasna to set up a program and curriculum for the school, then replaced Jasna with a middle school principal who knew nothing about the work he and Fuller did.
“That sabotaged the entire effort that we had made,” Fuller said.
Today, North Division High School remains predominantly Black — 90.5%, according to the latest state report card. The school scored an overall 54.9 on the report card, meeting few expectations, according to the Wisconsin Department of Education.
“For me, this struggle around North Division has never ended,” Fuller said. “It’s been ongoing for 30, 40 years.”
Alex Klaus is the education solutions reporter for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.
How Milwaukee residents rallied to save North Division High School from closure during 1970s integration fight is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The $46 billion in data centers proposed or under construction in Wisconsin continue to make news over who should pay for the electricity to power them, whether municipalities should use nondisclosure agreements to keep details confidential and more. Here are some of the latest updates:
Utility rates: The state Public Service Commission is accepting public comment on a We Energies proposal for determining whether the general public pays any share of the costs of constructing and operating power plants needed to meet data centers’ electricity demands. One concern is creating more “stranded assets” — power plants that are shut down before their debt is paid off. Wisconsin Watch reported in December that Wisconsin ratepayers owe $1 billion for stranded assets.
Legislation: A state Senate committee is holding hearings Tuesday, Feb. 17, on three data center bills. Senate Bill 729 seeks to limit how much general ratepayers can be charged by utilities for the cost of providing electricity to data centers. Senate Bill 843 contains a similar provision and has passed the Assembly, but also contains a controversial requirement that renewable energy used for a data center be on the data center site. Senate Bill 969 would prohibit local governments from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center developers. Separately, a new bill would impose 14 requirements on data center proposals, including prohibiting NDAs between local governments and data center developers. Wisconsin Watch found that local officials in at least four communities signed NDAs to hide details of data center proposals.
Janesville: The City Council put on the Nov. 3 ballot a referendum proposed by data center opponents that could give voters direct say over a hyperscale data center. If the referendum is approved, it would create an ordinance requiring separate referendum approval for any type of development project worth $450 million or more that is proposed for the former General Motors site. The data center proposed for Janesville is worth $8 billion.
Port Washington: Business groups are suing to block a proposed ordinance affecting economic development projects. The proposal was made by citizens who claimed a lack of transparency by the city over a $15 billion data center now under construction.
Grant County: A company seeking a site for a $1 billion data center has included rural Cassville in southwest Wisconsin in its search. A local official said he expects to learn in spring whether the county is still being considered.
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Interested in data center news? The latest on stories we’re following is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The towns of Two Creeks, Two Rivers and Mishicot all approved resolutions calling on Manitowoc County to place a one-year moratorium on new data center projects.
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Junior high school student, Sophia Knetter, discusses the common misconceptions about starting a youth-run business, noting the advantages of being young.
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Bankruptcy filings were 46 percent higher than in 2024, according to an American Farm Bureau Federation report, with more than a third of filings in the Midwest.
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In his eighth and final State of the State address Tuesday night, Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday night said Republicans have chronically underfunded Wisconsin schools and blamed them for increased property taxes after negotiations for a tax cut stalled this week.
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Tune in to WPR Music to hear the live recording of WPR’s second annual Classical Music Day!
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Whether Democratic Gov. Tony Evers can get onboard remains an open question.
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A Wisconsin bill would create a path for victims of sextortion to sue and attempt to recoup financial compensation. The bill's supporters have cited the case of 15-year-old Bradyn Bohn, who died by suicide after his parents said he fell victim to sextortion.
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Thousands of people flocked to northern Wisconsin to get a glimpse of the ice caves within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Monday, which officials have closed to the public after a single day.
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Research shows that children benefit from after-school programs, but four in five Wisconsin children are missing out. | Photo of girl on playground by Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images
I have visited many after-school and summer programs across Wisconsin, from large urban sites to small rural schools, and what I’ve seen has stayed with me. I’ve watched students immersed in creative writing, acting and robotics. I’ve observed staff working one-on-one with kids navigating intense emotional challenges. And I’ve seen the smiles on middle schoolers’ faces as they reconnect with trusted mentors at the end of the school day. These programs are not “extras”; they provide crucial support to kids, families, and entire communities.
And yet, for far too many Wisconsin families, these opportunities remain out of reach. According to the latest America After 3PM report, nearly 275,000 Wisconsin children who would participate in after-school programs are not enrolled because none are available. Four in five children who could benefit from these supports are missing out. Parents cite cost, lack of transportation, and a simple lack of local programming as the biggest barriers.
The impact of these programs is undeniable. Parents overwhelmingly rate their children’s after-school programs as excellent or very good, reporting that they keep kids safe, build social skills, and support mental wellness. Research in Wisconsin shows that students who participate in extracurricular activities are less likely to report anxiety or depression and more likely to feel a sense of belonging.
Out-of-school time programs often provide the space for deep, long-term mentoring, a powerful protective factor in a young person’s life. While teachers are often stretched thin during the academic day, out-of-school time staff can focus on the relational side of development.
When funding is unstable, it undermines the very connections that make these programs transformative. Recently, a Boys & Girls Club director shared the human cost of budget constraints: they were forced to reduce a veteran staff member to part-time. This didn’t just trim a budget; it severed a multi-year mentorship. When that bond was broken, several youths stopped attending entirely.
Across the country, after-school and summer programs are increasingly viewed as essential to youth development. Twenty-seven states provide dedicated state funding for these programs; Wisconsin provides none. States as different as Alabama and Texas recognize that federal funding alone is not enough. So do our Midwestern neighbors.
Public support for these programs is strong and bipartisan. Families across Wisconsin want safe, enriching opportunities for their children. With a significant budget surplus, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to invest in its future.
State leaders should view out-of-school programming as a foundation for safety, mental health, and long-term economic opportunity. We have the resources; now we need the will. By committing to consistent state funding, we can ensure that every young person in Wisconsin has a place to belong when the school bell rings.
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Eau Claire County Government Center | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
Eau Claire County Sheriff Dave Riewestahl announced Tuesday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had detained four individuals, including one at a construction site in the city of Altoona and three others who fled and barricaded themselves in a garage in the town of Washington.
Riewestahl said his office was contacted by ICE agents who said they would be at a construction site in the city of Altoona, near the city of Eau Claire, to arrest a suspect who had allegedly assaulted a law enforcement officer.
After agents attempted to arrest the suspect, Riewestahl said four individuals fled the site, and one was apprehended. The sheriff did not specify if the individual detained was the individual ICE was seeking.
The three who fled the scene entered a residence in the town of Washington, confronted a homeowner, then went into the garage. The homeowner then locked the door between the house and the garage.
Riewestahl said his office was called to address a criminal trespass to a dwelling, and then county deputies requested assistance by the city of Altoona police.
Upon the request of the homeowner, the sheriff said, his officers entered the home and attempted to gain voluntary compliance with the three individuals in the garage, but when verbal requests failed, the officers used pepperballs and the three surrendered.
Riewestahl said the three individuals who had trespassed at the town of Washington home were turned over to ICE agents. None of the four taken into ICE’s custody were detained at the Eau Claire County Jail.
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Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar speaks at a Feb. 17 forum at the Marquette University law school. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Maria Lazar says she wants disagreements on the Court to be more respectful.
At a Tuesday forum hosted by the Marquette University School of Law, Lazar attempted to distance herself from the highly politicized Supreme Court campaigns of recent years, painting herself as an independent judge who, while leaning more conservative than the Court’s current liberal majority, wants to just follow the law.
However, since her election to the state’s District Two Court of Appeals, Lazar has been a reliably conservative vote on the reliably conservative appellate panel — including a case in which she sided with election deniers attempting to gain access to confidential voter information. Lazar’s campaign has also received endorsements and financial support from high profile Republicans.
But she says she’s never been a member of a political party, contrasting herself with her opponent, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, who was previously a Democratic member of the state Assembly. State Supreme Court races are nominally nonpartisan, but both political parties have been heavily involved in supporting their preferred candidates in recent years.
“I am the one on my court that sort of solves the disputes, and I think that on the Supreme Court I would be the same way,” she said. “I know that it would be 3-4, and I know that I’d be in the minority with the more conservative leaning than liberal leaning, and I get that. But the decisions aren’t all 4-to-3. I mean, sometimes they’re 7-0 or 6-1, and I just think that I would bring a level of collegiality, a level of really hard dedication and work.”
Since the liberal wing of the Court gained the majority with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023, the Court’s conservatives — most notably Justice Annette Ziegler and the outgoing Justice Rebecca Bradley — have frequently lobbed personal attacks at the majority in their published opinions, accusing the majority of being partisan lackeys for the Democratic party.
Lazar said she doesn’t think the Court should work that way.
“But some of the opinions written by our Court right now, the differences that are going on on that bench, there’s such a level of dissatisfaction with each other and personal animus that when you read those dissents, you say, how can you write something that personal and mean and then go and work the next day and sit across from that person and say, ‘Let’s talk about the next appeal?’” she said.
Despite her efforts to paint herself as a moderate, Lazar has occasionally shared her agreement with conservative beliefs on abortion. As an attorney for the state Department of Justice under Gov. Scott Walker, Lazar defended Act 10, the law that repealed labor rights for public employees, and argued in favor of gerrymandered maps Republicans drew in 2011, locking in disproportionate GOP legislative majorities.
“I would never be on that Court to be a firebrand,” Lazar said Tuesday. “I would be on that Court to stand up for what I believe in and what I believe the law says.”
At the forum, Lazar said she can’t share with voters how she would decide hypothetical cases, but she can share “what I believe in and what I stand for.” The remark closely mirrors statements Protasiewicz made about her political beliefs during her 2023 campaign. Those remarks have followed Protasiewicz onto the bench, with Republicans often raising them to demand that she recuse herself from controversial cases.
On her judicial philosophy, Lazar said she’s “an originalist with a slight tinge of textualism.”
Originalism is a legal theory that emerged in the 1980s and has become the dominant ideology of conservative justices across the country. Under the theory, judges argue that laws should be interpreted through the intent and context of the law when it was written — attempting to glean the motivations of the country’s constitutional framers 250 years after the fact. Critics argue that originalists often use flawed historical analysis.
But at the forum, Lazar gave a different meaning to originalism.
“Originalist means that if you get the statute or the law or the constitutional amendment or whatever it is, you look at it first, and if you can’t answer the question, which you probably can’t, because why is it in front of your court if it’s so obvious? So you look at it, and then you look at headings. You look at statutes around it, you look at other statutes in the law. You start looking around. And that’s originalism. You’re looking at the words as they’re written,” she said.
Lazar said that trying to determine the intent of legislators gets dangerous.
“Now, some judicial philosophies go all the way out. And they look at everything, what people say when they write the laws, what their intent was, and that’s a little dangerous,” she said. “To me, that’s judicial activism, because I see judges and justices who get to the end result in their mind and then find a way to get there. That’s not the proper way to look at the law, and that’s not what we do. We don’t legislate on the bench. We’re not activists. We don’t have agendas.”
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The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr. at an encampment dubbed "Resurrection City," at the close of the Poor People's March at the National Mall in Washington D.C., in May 1968. (Photo by Pix/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Tributes poured in across the country for the revered civil rights figure the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., who died Tuesday morning at 84.
The two-time Democratic presidential hopeful and Greenville, South Carolina, native died peacefully, surrounded by his kin, according to his family.
Jackson, who was active in the civil rights movement as a college student, worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a young adult before King’s 1968 assassination.
Leading his own political movement, Jackson became known for his populist message, charismatic delivery and organizing prowess that elevated the role and influence of Black political leaders and helped shape the modern Democratic Party.
“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” Jackson’s family said in a statement.
“We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family,” his family added. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, ordered flags to fly at half-staff Tuesday in Jackson’s honor in the state where he lived and worked for many years.
The family statement did not list a cause of death. Jackson was diagnosed in 2013 with Parkinson’s disease. His diagnosis was updated last year to progressive supranuclear palsy, according to a November statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition that Jackson founded.
Former President Barack Obama, the first Black president, and his wife, Michelle Obama, said Jackson’s runs for the presidency “laid the foundation” for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 campaign. And Chicago native Michelle Obama’s “first glimpse of political organizing” was at the Jacksons’ kitchen table, they said.
“From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect,” they wrote. “Reverend Jackson also created opportunities for generations of African Americans and inspired countless more, including us.”
President Donald Trump paid tribute, dubbing Jackson “a force of nature like few others before him” and a “good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,’” in a social media post Tuesday.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, honored Jackson as a “legendary voice for the voiceless, powerful civil rights champion and trailblazer extraordinaire,” in a social media post.
“For decades, while laboring in the vineyards of the community, he inspired us to keep hope alive in the struggle for liberty and justice for all,” the New York Democrat said.
Jeffries expressed gratitude for Jackson’s “incredible service” to the country and “profound sacrifice as the people’s champion.”
Former President Joe Biden called Jackson “a man of God and of the people. Determined and tenacious. Unafraid of the work to redeem the soul of our Nation.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and longtime friend of Jackson, said the civil rights leader lived a life “defying odds,” in a statement Tuesday.
“Reverend Jackson showed us that if we all work together – we can bend the arc of the moral universe and change history,” Clyburn said while also pointing to Jackson’s impact on “the nation, Black Americans, and movements to encourage civic participation around the world.”
U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who is the party’s highest-ranking Black elected official, honored Jackson’s legacy as a leader and role model.
“I don’t have to agree with someone politically to deeply respect the role Jesse Jackson, a South Carolina native, played in uplifting Black voices and inspiring young folks to believe their voices mattered,” Scott wrote on social media. “Those that empower people to stand taller always leave a lasting mark. Rest in peace.”
Jackson’s legacy will live on in the next generation, South Carolina state Sen. Deon Tedder said during a news conference Tuesday.
“The future generation, they’re picking up that torch, they’re picking up that mantle,” said Tedder, a Democrat, gesturing to students from the state’s historically Black colleges and universities. “The baton has been passed, and now what you see is the future.”
South Carolina state Rep. Hamilton Grant recalled seeing Jackson at the July 9, 2015, signing ceremony of the law that removed the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds entirely. The flag was taken down the next day, 15 years after it came off the Statehouse dome in a compromise Jackson opposed.
“For him, being from South Carolina, to see that moment, and me being there in close proximity with him, meant the world to me,” Grant told the South Carolina Daily Gazette. He said Jackson paved the way for Black leaders like him and helped instill in him pride in his identity.
The South Carolina House and Senate held moments of silence in Jackson’s honor Tuesday.
“There are so many little boys and little girls in South Carolina who can look in the mirror now and say, ‘I am somebody!’ because of this native son,” state Sen. Karl Allen, a Democrat, said.
Jackson leaves behind a legacy of political and social justice work that spanned decades.
He founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a national social justice organization whose name evoked Jackson’s multiracial voter base and the theme of his 1984 Democratic National Convention speech. That organization was formed by a merger between Operation PUSH, which Jackson founded in 1971, and the Rainbow Coalition.
In his 1988 bid for the presidency, Jackson based his campaign in Iowa prior to that state’s presidential caucuses and made the official announcement of his candidacy at a farm in Greenfield on Oct. 10, 1987.
He finished in fourth place in the caucuses but went on to briefly become the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination by winning a coalition of Black and Latino voters and white liberals, though he ultimately came in second in delegates to Michael Dukakis.
Similar blocs propelled Obama to victory two decades later and continue to form national Democrats’ base.
Two of Jackson’s sons, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Jonathan Jackson, would represent Illinois in the U.S. House. Jonathan Jackson remains in office after first winning election in 2022.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont who endorsed Jackson’s 1988 campaign, said in a Tuesday statement Jackson had been a friend and ally for nearly 40 years and credited Jackson with founding modern progressivism.
“His creation of the Rainbow Coalition, a revolutionary idea at the time, that developed a grassroots movement of working people — Black, white, Latino, Asian-American, Native-American, gay and straight — laid the foundation for the modern progressive movement which is continuing to fight for his vision of economic, racial, social and environmental justice,” Sanders wrote. “Jackson has had a profound impact upon our country. His politics of togetherness and solidarity should guide us going forward.”
Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and a Baptist pastor, recalled the influence Jackson’s presidential runs had on a young Warnock growing up in public housing.
“With an eloquence and rhythmic rhetoric all his own, Jesse Jackson reminded America that equal justice is not inevitable,” he said. “It requires vigilance and commitment, and for freedom fighters, sacrifice. His ministry was poetry and spiritual power in the public square. He advanced King’s dream and bent the arc of history closer to justice.”
Jaime Harrison, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Jackson’s 1988 run, which culminated with a speech at the party convention that lauded the United States’ multiracial identity, inspired him.
As “a poor Black kid from South Carolina,” Harrison said he was drawn to Jackson’s command of the convention hall after accumulating more than 1,000 delegates.
“He did not win the nomination,” Harrison wrote. “But he won our imagination.”
Adrian Ashford contributed to this report.
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