African-American History

African American history materials available through Umbra Search

Recollection Wisconsin has partnered with Umbra Search African American History at the University of Minnesota — a program that makes African American culture and history more broadly available through a freely available search tool (umbrasearch.org), strategic digitization, public events and workshops. Digitized materials that document African American cultural history, held in the collections of Recollection… Read More…

Carson Gulley, Madison’s first celebrity chef

The following is an excerpt from Madison Food: A History of Capital Cuisine by Nichole Fromm & JonMichael Rasmus (Arcadia, 2015), shared here with permission of the authors. This section from Chapter 5, “Soul Proprietors: African American Restaurant Owners and Chefs,” recounts the stellar career and civil rights struggles of Carson Gulley, the first celebrity… Read More…

Milwaukee’s struggle for civil rights

Fair housing demonstration, Milwaukee, 1967. Photo by Ben Fernandez. James Groppi Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society.

This feature is curated by Mark Speltz, senior historian for American Girl. Mark began exploring the photographic record of the civil rights movement in Milwaukee as a graduate student in public history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In the six years since, he has interviewed participants, politicians, and photographers and remains ever hopeful new photographs and… Read More…