"EVERY TIME A GROUP OR INDIVIDUAL CREATES A POSITIVE ACT AGAINST VIOLENCE, WE ACHEIVE VICTORY OVER VIOLENCE."
-CHARLES WALTON
THE STORY
A Family's Legacy and the Fight for Civil Rights
The person that we worked with the most during our project is Charles Walton. Charles comes from a family with a deep connection to civil rights as well as dealing with the tragedy of gun violence. His mother, Jeannetta Simpson Robinson, is the inspiration for the Victory Over Violence Park.
Jeannetta, born September 17, 1940, was a nationally known and highly respected civil rights leader. She moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1957 and received a bachelor’s degree in education with a minor in criminal justice administration from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Jeannetta was active in every phase of the Civil Rights Movement and one of its most effective leaders on both a local and national scale. She participated in the struggle and marches alongside many others including James Farmer, the National Chairman of Congress on Racial Equality, A. Philip Randalph, Martin Luther King Jr.. She was elected to the position of Vice-Chairman as well as CORE’s (Congress On Racial Equality) National Midwest Secretary.
Jeannetta and her daughter were the original founders of Career Youth Development (CYD) Inc., a non-profit multi-service agency whose programs were designed to meet the needs of economically, educational, and socially challenged youth, adults, and families within the community. Victory Over Violence Park was originally opened as a public gathering space that was maintained by CYD. Through CYD., she met with survivors of homicide and started a grief support group after the brutal murder of her daughter and granddaughter. It was her vision to create a place of beauty and peace where people could gather together.
Source: Charles Walton, "The Legacy of a Godly Woman" (n.d.)
OUR WORK
During the first semester, our group was able to visit Victory Over Violence Park, seeing the space for ourselves and interacting with community stakeholders. There was work being done on the main lot and a second lot that was untouched while it was still being decided how to make use of the second lot.
A student who worked with the park in the past met with us, handing over piles of files including survey data on what community members hoped for in the park. The survey data revealed a lot of mixed feelings on what people wanted.
This aligned with the sentiments of the people that we met at the park. When they told us about their hopes for the space, we began to realize that a lot of people had very different ideas of what they wanted. Some wanted a playground. Some wanted a place of reverence. Some wanted the second lot to be made into a parking lot.
When we met with Charles Walton, we got his input on what to do with the second lot. More importantly, we had an in-depth conversation about the history of his family, the history of the park, and how the two are intertwined. It became clear that the park has too rich a history to ignore. After this conversation, we began research on memorials to go in the park and highlight its story. We each did individual research on memorial projects that had been done by others, both locally and around the world, which commemorated specific people or victims of violence. The results, pictured below, were passed onto community partners to inspire and drive their conversation about how to represent the park’s deep history.
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Women's Monument | Santiago, Chile
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Memorial for Survivors of Sexual Violence | Minneapolis, Minnesota
Rogers Park Viaduct Mural | Chicago, Illinois
MASS Gun Violence Memorial | Chicago, Illinois
Spirit of Service | Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Immigrant Mother | Milwaukee, Wisconsin
WHAT COMES NEXT?
As we leave our freshman year, we have passed on our work and research to community partners to strengthen the progress being made on the park. In its future lies programming that will greatly benefit the community. In the past, there have been support group meetings, political events, concerts, and fundraising drives held in Victory Over Violence Park. It is anticipated that this will happen again when the park is ready for community use. Hopefully, our research on memorials to commemorate the deep history of the park will lead to a monument being installed in the park. It is possible that this will even be done by future honors students.
If there are future honors students, we have some final words of advice to pass on after our many difficulties with the project this year. For us, the project was extremely slow-moving and our objectives changed many times. Future students: be aggressive. If you feel like you are not on the right path, change paths right away. Know that there are always alternate options for helping the park and the community if you get stuck. There are a lot of people involved with this project and developing anything in the city takes time. Push forward fearlessly and always remember Charles Walton’s guidance: “Every time a group or individual creates a positive act against violence, we achieve victory over violence.”