Civil rights pioneer Vel Phillips` statue symbolizes greater representation in Wisconsin Capitol

On July 27, a new, historic statue was unveiled in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol. It is a bronze statue of the late Vel Phillips, who was the first woman and first African American on the Milwaukee Common Council. In statue form, Phillips sits up straight while wearing a slight smile.

Michael Phillips is Vel’s son and part of the task force that helped create the statue. He says one of the major barriers to the project was a Wisconsin law that prohibited any new statues on Capitol grounds. For the project to come to fruition, Michael needed bipartisan support.

"We had not one contrary voice to the idea of putting a sculpture of my mom up in the state capital," Phillips says. "I had buy-in across the aisle, and it`s because she stepped across the aisle."

Vel Phillips was known for breaking barriers. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from the UW-Madison Law School in 1951, and she later became the first African-American woman to hold statewide office in the US when she was elected Wisconsin’s secretary of state in 1978...