When the conversation turns to the giants who shaped Black Milwaukee, names like Vel Phillips, Joshua Glover, James Cameron, Hank Aaron, Gwen Moore and Mike McGee are often among the first mentioned. But any serious accounting of the city’s fight for civil rights, educational justice and Black empowerment is incomplete without Dr. Howard Fuller — a relentless activist, educator and movement leader whose influence has stretched across generations.
Fuller left his mark in North Carolina and Chicago, before returning to his boyhood home in Milwaukee and has been everything from Black militant Malcolm X follower, innovative education reform advocate, Milwaukee Public Schools superintendent and Marquette University professor.
Fuller was a leader in Milwaukee’s Black community alongside McGee most notably in 1981 following the fatal police beating of Ernest Lacy. The duo appeared in local media, including on TV nearly every night, calling for justice for Lacy’s family…