Author: Syndicated

The QWERTY layout is attributed to Milwaukee inventor Christopher Latham Sholes, which made its debut in its earliest form 145 years ago today on July 1, 1874. If you’re near a computer keyboard, take a look at the first six letters on the upper row and you’ll find: Q-W-E-R-T-Y…or…qwerty. So who decided how the letters on our keyboards are arranged, and why that particular configuration? Writer Meg Jones tells the story of Christopher Latham Sholes, a Wisconsin politician and inventor who is considered by many, the “Father of the modern Typewriter.” Who ever would have thought that some day...

Looking at pride celebrations in 2019, it is hard to believe that roughly half a century ago, these festivities were nonexistent. Younger generations may only know Pride Month as rainbows in a multitude of shapes and sizes matched with numerous images of unity and love between all genders. But for people like Don Schwamb who have lived through the decades where to love someone of the same sex could leave you isolated, shamed and possibly arrested, pride celebrations are a testament to how far the gay community has come and how much farther there is to go for other...

Wisconsin’s LGBTQ residents are more visible than ever in the state. Despite facing ongoing prejudice, Wisconsin’s queer community enjoys rights that were not extended to previous generations, including protections against workplace discrimination and the equal right to marriage. On a political level, gay and lesbian officeholders represent Wisconsinites in local, state and federal elected positions. But inclusion of LGBTQ Wisconsinites into the state’s cultural, educational and political institutions is a relatively new development. For much of Wisconsin’s history, the contributions of queer men and women went largely unrecognized in the public sphere; instead, law enforcement, institutional leaders and the...

Founded in 2012 by Ajamou Butler, also known as Brother Heal the Hood, the mission was simple: “heal the hearts, heal the homes, heal the hood.” Now in their eighth year, the block parties are only one sector of stimulating the healing process in Milwaukee’s urban neighborhoods. Multiple times a year the nonprofit Heal the Hood Milwaukee congregates in the city’s streets welcoming people to free food, entertainment and an unexpected topic for a block party: healing. While the nice weather and live music may draw the crowds in, the local vendors and other hometown heroes are what keep...

We are two months away from the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved people arriving in what would become the United States of America. It is time to renew the public discussion about reparations to descendants of Africans who were enslaved as our country was forming and growing rich. First as colonies and then as a nation, America has existed longer with slavery (1619-1865: 246 years) than without it (1865-2019: 154 years). And the reality of the institution of enslaving people is not the “good food and a decent place to live” narrative of Bill O’Reilly on Fox News...

In the popular imagination, American history exists in a narrative of self-congratulatory. Events of the past are frequently filtered through a majority lens, focusing on the perceived heroics of white abolitionists and civil rights activists. To hear some people explain it, the civil rights struggle of the 1960s ended when President Lyndon B. Johnson indulged Martin Luther King Jr. by signing the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, after which racism was solved and everything was better forever. This is an example of why most Americans are generally unfamiliar with Reconstruction, the period of time afterward that is sometimes...