Black Male Suffrage in Wisconsin

Wed. Jan. 30, 6:30 pm Sun Prairie Public Library (1350 Linnerud Dr. in Sun Prairie) Black Male Suffrage in Wisconsin – talk by Christy Clark-Pujara, Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at UW-Madison. On October 31, 1865 Ezekiel Gillespie, a black Milwaukee resident, went to “the place of registration on the flats in the Seventh ward” and asked that his name be added to the list of eligible voters, he was refused. The next day he went to the polls to vote. He was turned away. Historians have noted Wisconsinites’ defiance of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law and highlighted the Republican Party’s commitment to black suffrage. Wisconsin Republicans were among the most progressive in the country. Yet, the efforts of antislavery and abolitionist Wisconsinites failed to alter the political marginality that black Wisconsinites faced in the founding decades of the state. Info? Visit the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/545833732546295/