Milwaukee’s Lindsay Heights neighborhood is one of 13 U.S. sites included in an annual thematic report and online exhibition called “Landslide 2021: Race and Space,” The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) announced Wednesday.
The report – the first installment of which was released in 2003 – explores relatively unknown at-risk landscapes, according to TCLF.
“The threats range from lack of recognition, insufficient funding and deferred maintenance to outright erasure.”
Here’s what TCLF said about Lindsay Heights, which is bordered by West Walnut, West Locust, North 12th and North 20th Streets:
“Once the site of Samuel Brown’s farm, an important stop on the Underground Railroad, the predominately Black Lindsay Heights neighborhood of Milwaukee has played a significant role in the history of the city but remains underrecognized as a cultural and historical asset. As economic development rooted in Downtown Milwaukee pushes north towards Lindsay Heights, there is growing risk that these overlooked histories will be further pushed to the side.”
You can see the full Lindsay Heights exhibition, with photos, videos and text here.
“Landslide 2021 broadens our understanding of our nation’s complex history by raising the visibility of its overlooked cultural landscapes,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, TCLF’s president and CEO.
“Lindsay Heights is a vibrant community with a remarkable history, yet it is also fragile. Meaningful community engagement is essential to insuring its cultural resilience.”
Among the other locations in “Landslide 2021” are Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground, thought to have been the largest cemetery for free and enslaved people of color in the United States, located in Richmond, Virginia; Sandy Ground, in Staten Island, N.Y., which is the oldest continually inhabited free African-American settlement in the country; and,Wink’s Panorama, in Gilpin County, Colorado, one of the first resorts built by and for Black Americans.
Sites enrolled in the Landslide report series are then monitored by TCLF for changes.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He can be heard weekly on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories.
