ABSTRACT
In October 2013, a small community of scholars and practitioners gathered at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte to discuss challenges facing the black family two decades into the new millennium. This chapter uses Milwaukee to highlight the consequences of the triangulation, arguing that there are critical lessons to be learned about black families in the United States based on the African American experience in the "Brew City". Coupled with hyper-segregation and rising poverty, neoliberal policy experiments have resulted in disastrous social, economic, and political outcomes for thousands of black Milwaukee families. Governor Scott Walker signed a bill that made Wisconsin—once a beacon of labor activism and progressive reform—a "right to work state". The history of African American migration to Milwaukee serves as an important example of the rich story that is the Great Migration of black Southerners to Northern industrial urban centers. Wisconsin ranks last in the country in "the overall well-being of African American children".
