Vel Phillips Hate Mail
WARNING: THE LETTER BELOW CONTAINS OPPRESSIVE LANGUAGE
This letter was found in Vel Phillips’ personal papers. Phillips was a common council member who first introduced open housing legislation to Milwaukee in 1962 and introduced it annually until it passed in 1968.
Notice how the person expressed their strong (and antiquated) opinions about anti-discrimination laws and didn’t bother to sign the letter except to call themselves “South Sider”.
In the finding aid, one can find an explanation of the variety of correspondence collected in the Vel Phillips papers. There are several boxes of correspondence and some of the folders have the label “opposition mail” though some researchers may consider the letters blatantly hate mail.
“This label “opposition mail” is not meant to minimize the racist nature of some of the correspondence, but rather to provide a generic term for the inclusion of all letters opposed to fair housing. This better reflects the way Phillips had organized the letters prior to accessioning.”
The fight for open housing in Milwaukee is covered in many collections at the UWM Archives. The finding aid for Phillips’ paper collection can be found here:
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mil00231