UW Law School, in partnership with 
the Black Law Students Association 
and Women's Law Student Association, 
invites you to join us for a screening of

Vel Phillips ’51 is the first African-American woman to graduate from UW Law School, one of many “firsts” in her long career as a lawyer, politician and civil rights leader. As the first female and first African-American elected to the Milwaukee Common Council, Phillips brought national attention to the city’s discriminatory housing practices and pushed for, and in 1968, finally won reform through her Fair Housing Law. Phillips would later become the first African-American judge in Wisconsin, and nationally, the first woman and first African-American to hold statewide office when she was elected Wisconsin’s secretary of state in 1978.

Submitted by Tammy Kempfert on March 5, 2015

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