Governor Evers: The Best Ally Black Wisconsinites Have Had In The Governor's Mansion

     When Tony Evers ran for governor in 2018, he made it clear that securing equality for hundreds of thousands of black Wisconsinites would be a priority of his administration. He selected Assemblyman Mandela Barnes as his running mate; in 2019, Barnes became the first black lieutenant governor in state history. 

     In 2020 and 2021, Governor Evers raised the Juneteenth flag above the Wisconsin State Capitol Building in Madison while delivering numerous speeches and releasing videos commemorating the annual event marking the functional end of slavery in the United States; Juneteenth would be recognized as a federal holiday the latter year.

     In 2020, Governor Evers met with Jacob Blake, a man shot in the back by police officers in Kenosha, and his relatives as President Trump rode through Kenosha in his motorcade to cater to people like white supremacist, domestic terrorist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse. While Blake's would-be-assassins were never charged, Governor Evers made progress on police reform. His special session on the issue was ignored by the Republican-controlled legislature, but he secured the passage of numerous bills into law: banning the use of chokeholds, publishing a record of all police use of force incidents in the state, mandating all departments make their use-of-force policies public information, securing large amounts of funding for community-oriented police housing programs, and other measures to hold bad police accountable while reducing friction between good police and community members.

     The importance of intersectionality is only now being fully embraced, and the governor's work to protect LGBTQ Wisconsinites, increase funding for education, stand up for women's healthcare, restore the state's infrastructure, and reform the criminal justice system have been a lifesaver for many marginalized communities. The latter category is particularly important in a state with the worst racial divide in incarceration in all of the United States.

     His veto power has been equally important. Like other GOP legislatures, the Wisconsin Senate and Assembly advanced bills disproportionately targeting black communities with voter suppression, banning the teaching of critical race theory in Wisconsin schools, targeting the right to protest, and other Draconian measures. Armed with the most extensive veto power any state affords its governor, Evers vetoed these detrimental bills.

     In November 2021, it was announced that a statue of Vel Phillips, the Milwaukee civil rights icon who was the first female judge in Milwaukee County, the first black judge in Wisconsin, the first female and first non-white secretary of state of Wisconsin, and the first black person elected to the national committee of a major U.S. political party, would be erected in the Wisconsin State Capitol. The Phillips statue will be the first statue of a woman of color to be in any state capitol across the nation.

     Mandela Barnes is running for Senate in 2022; if he wins, Governor Evers would be wise to select a woman of color as his running mate. So much progress has been made, but so much more remains to be done!