American Political Establishment Seeks Rollback of Basic Rights In Effort to Consolidate Power

The right to safe and legal abortion in the United States is under threat.  Tuesday, Politico revealed a leaked draft opinion by United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. that would effectively overturn the landmark cases of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which affirmed a federal, constitutional right of … Continue reading American Political Establishment Seeks Rollback of Basic Rights In Effort to Consolidate Power

“It feels good to be loved”

M.D. Dangerfield Jr. sits in a yard near 2nd and Nash in Williamsburg Heights. A small, portable grill is filled to the brim with meats; children play on the sidewalk nearby. Dangerfield — draped in a white, tank top undershirt and a towel that hangs from his shoulder — looks on.

“I’ve been around here ‘bout a good six, seven years. It’s a big difference from where I’ve been,” says Dangerfield, who was born and spent most of his early childhood in Chicago. “It’s more peaceful.”

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“December 20th, that will be it for me”

Bessie Jeter leisurely drags on a cigarette while standing on the porch of her longtime home on the 3700 block of North 2nd Street. She wasn’t born in Milwaukee but she’s been here for more than forty years.

“I was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi,” she says. “It wasn’t bad. I grew up, I learned how to work hard, I picked and chopped cotton until I was 18 years of age and I left home when I graduated from high school.”

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“It was just really hard livin’ in Mississippi”

Annie Davis sits in a swath of shade on the lowly set sill of a window near the corner of 41st and North gazing out into the sunlight while she waits. The 61-year-old Davis grew up in Greenwood, Miss., the daughter of a sharecropper. Life was not easy.

“We didn’t have no money so we had to help our mother, you know. We had to chop cotton, pick cotton … so I didn’t get a chance to go to school,” says Davis. “My mother, she grew up doin’ the same thing, almost like slavery.”

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“I kind of followed my mother here”

This story is part of a series focusing on the 30th Street Industrial & Economic Corridor.

Robert Stewart stands outside his garage on a dead-end street in Franklin Heights.

Steward says he ended up in Milwaukee because of family and the chance to get a good job. “I kind of followed my mother here – she lived up here; I was livin’ in Missouri. [The city] seemed like it had good opportunities back then.”

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