Interview with Margaret Rozga, UW-Waukesha professor and civil rights activist
Tony Llewellyn
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: Entertainment
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As a civil rights activist in Milwaukee and Bullock, Rozga has powerful story to tell. Much of that story is revealed her book, 200 Nights and One Day. It is a book of poems that captures her intense experiences, feelings, and emotions in the Freedom Struggle in Milwaukee. Given that the Freedom Struggle isn't discussed much in history books, 200 Nights and One Day doesn't only tell Rozga's personal story but reveals facts about the events that aren't easily found elsewhere.
Q:You were a civil rights activist. You made history. How did it all begin?
A: "I can remember watching the nightly news of what was going on in Little Rock, Ark. in 1957. I remember watching soldiers guarding students. I was just like 'why can't these students go to school?' I remember very clearly the use of fire hoses and, attack dogs in Birmingham, Alab. in 1963, and just being shocked. I was always taught that America was home of the brave and, land of the free, so I was like how could this be? I received feedback from my parents on how to respond. My parents would say sympathetic things but not a lot."
"After I graduated high school, I worked as a nanny to a family with children who were all girls. I took my first trip to the South when I went on vacation with that whole family to Kentuckytucky and Tennessee because the older two girls were in a meet in Nashville, Tennennessee. I remember getting on a train in Chattanooga, Tenn.only to see separate ticket windows. One white and one colored. Everybody just acted casually as if this was something normal and I was just shocked by it all. I was the only one there who was shocked by this. Nobody else there was shocked or thought of this to be out of the ordinary."
"I remember another experience when I went to Georgia and seeing a sign that read "No Chain Gang Beyond This Point". There were all these black prisoners chained up doing road work. This was shocking to me."
"After having watched a lot of news programs of what was going on down South and my own experiences down South, I decided to join a program called SCOPE (Summer Community Organization aAnd Political Organization) in 1965. SCOPE was a program in which people in different areas of the North would go to help fight in the Freedom Struggle in different cities of Alabama. Milwaukee volunteers were to work in Bullock County, Alab. Once I heard they were calling for volunteers, the rest of the Milwaukee volunteers and I went to work in Bullock county Alabama for that summer."
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