Milwaukee will unveil a permanent public artwork honoring civil rights leader Vel R. Phillips on August 21 at 11 a.m., with the ceremony taking place at Vel R. Phillips Plaza in the heart of downtown. The piece, titled “I Didn't Do It Alone,” was created by internationally recognized artist Karyn Olivier and celebrates Phillips' life and legacy, according to a post from the City of Milwaukee.
As detailed in a post shared by City of Milwaukee on Facebook, the public is invited to attend the unveiling at the plaza. The memorial itself is built around a bronze desk and bronze chair replicating Phillips' historic office, paired with two stone architectural structures featuring six outward-facing figures with linked arms, according to WisPolitics. The design is intended to bridge Phillips' personal career as a decision-maker with the collective activism of the local citizens who marched alongside her, per that report.
A Design Rooted in the 1967 Marches
Those linked-arm figures directly reference Milwaukee's 1967 open housing marches, when Phillips authored the city's local open housing ordinance and joined Father James Groppi and the NAACP Youth Council for 200 consecutive days of marching through Milwaukee streets, according to Visit Milwaukee. That sustained campaign led to Phillips' arrest and drew national media attention to the city's housing segregation, ultimately pushing Milwaukee to pass open housing legislation following the 1968 federal Fair Housing Act.
Rather than a traditional static portrait statue, Olivier's approach contrasts the solitary authority of Phillips' executive desk with figures representing everyday protesters, explicitly honoring the collective labor behind the fair housing fight, according to the dossier's research notes on the project's design intent. City officials have cited national data compiled by Monument Lab showing that only 6% of public monuments in the United States depict women, with an even smaller fraction representing women of color, per WisPolitics — a statistic officials say underscores why this commission matters.
An International Search Led to a Philadelphia Artist
Olivier, an associate professor of sculpture at Temple University and a 2025 USA Fellow, was selected for the commission in October 2024 by a city-appointed Art Committee after a competitive international call for proposals drew 60 submissions, according to Urban Milwaukee. The commission was organized through the City of Milwaukee's Department of City Development. Her public art portfolio includes major commemorative projects at Newark Liberty International Airport and Philadelphia's Stenton Park, and she specializes in reinterpreting traditional public monuments and historical memory.
Phillips' son, attorney Michael Phillips, publicly praised the inclusion of a young Black man among the monument's figures, saying it provides positive representation and encouragement for young Black men navigating societal challenges, Urban Milwaukee reported. Michael Phillips has served as a primary representative of the family's legacy in discussions surrounding the artwork.
Phillips' Trailblazing Career
Vel Phillips built a career of historic firsts in Wisconsin. She became the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Wisconsin Law School in 1951, the first woman and Black person elected to the Milwaukee Common Council in 1956, the state's first Black judge in 1971, and the first Black person elected to statewide office when she won Secretary of State in 1978, according to Marquette University. She remains the only Black candidate to win a statewide executive office in Wisconsin history.
The Milwaukee unveiling follows a separate statewide memorial effort. In July 2024, an outdoor bronze statue of Phillips created by the late sculptor Radcliffe Bailey was unveiled on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, marking the first statue of a Black leader installed on state capitol grounds, according to Hyperallergic. That Capitol monument was funded through private donations and approved unanimously by a bipartisan state board.
The Plaza Behind the Artwork
Vel R. Phillips Plaza itself opened in downtown Milwaukee in June 2024 as a 30,000-square-foot public gathering space and multimodal transit hub, financed through $15.75 million in Tax Incremental District funding authorized by the Milwaukee Common Council. The site replaces a former parking lot across from the Baird Center convention hub. In previous Hoodline coverage, the plaza's commercial pavilion also became home to local drafthouse Draft & Co., which opened in January 2026 in a 2,900-square-foot space integrated into the city's broader development plan for the transit site.
