Vel Phillips Statue Unveiled

Former Wisconsin Secretary of State and legal pioneer Velvalea Phillips is honored with a statue on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds.

In February 2021, Madison Community Foundation and the Oscar Rennebohm Foundation announced a $100,000 combined grant to help fund the creation of a statue of former Wisconsin Secretary of State Velvalea “Vel” Phillips. That sculpture, the first of an African American placed on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds, was unveiled this summer in a ceremony in July.

Phillips Was a Trailblazer and an Advocate

Vel Phillips was a woman of many firsts and is remembered as a pioneer in Wisconsin’s legal and political history.

• In 1951, Phillips became the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
• She became the first woman and first Black alderperson elected to the Milwaukee Common Council in 1956. In this role, Phillips fought for fair housing policies to protect minorities from discrimination when renting or buying homes. During this time, Phillips was also active in the League of Women Voters and the NAACP.
• She brought national attention to Milwaukee’s civil rights movement by organizing demonstrations in support of fair housing legislation that continued for more than 200 days.
• She was the first Black woman to become a judge in Wisconsin.
• In 1978, Phillips was the first Black woman to be elected to statewide office, as Wisconsin’s Secretary of State.

Even after her retirement, Phillips remained active in the community and went on to chair the successful congressional campaign of Gwen Moore, Wisconsin’s First African American member of the House of Representatives.

Correcting a Lack of Representation on the State Capitol Grounds

In 2020, during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Michael Johnson, the CEO of Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, was approached by a group of young activists that recognized the lack of representation of people of color at the State Capitol. In response, Johnson began calling on people across the state to create a task force to choose an honoree and help with fundraising efforts.

The task force selected Phillips soon after, due to her dedication of serving the state of Wisconsin. Radcliffe Bailey, a sculptor and painter whose works centered around race, ancestry and the history of civil rights was chosen to create the sculpture of Vel Phillips.

Although Vel Phillips passed in 2018 at the age of 95, her legacy of “firsts” continues. The statue was unveiled on July 27, 2024, and will forever be the first monument of a Black leader on the Wisconsin State Capitol grounds. The statue is also the first of any Black woman outside of a capitol building in the United States.

Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Vel Phillips

Vel Phillips was a woman of many firsts, including the first Black woman to graduate from the UW-Madison Law School.

Nearly a thousand people gathered for the unveiling of this historic sculpture to celebrate the life and legacy of Velvalea Phillips. Mike Phillips, her son, stated, “My mom’s legacy lives on. But there is more work to be done. We must honor her legacy by investing in our kids. We must help kids find their own ‘firsts’.”

The sculpture is located on the South Hamilton Street corner of the Capitol building. Its inscription lists several of Vel Phillips trailblazing accomplishments along with a quote from Phillips that will leave readers contemplating the impact of their actions on the world for generations to come: “What have you done, today, that’s good?”