For 80 years, Michelle Brice’s family has owned, lived and spread love in their home located in the Lindsay Heights neighborhood. It was Brice’s great-grandmother Harriet Dorsey’s courage that led to her impacting not only that neighborhood but the City of Milwaukee.
Dorsey moved from Cincinnati, OH to a Milwaukee neighborhood, making her the first African American family to own and reside in the area. She raised three daughters, along with a community of kids.
“She helped anybody. She’s the kind of woman I pray to be,” Brice said about her great grandmother. “She laid the foundation in our family.”
But even with Brice’s great-grandmother having the title of “Queen Mother of the African American community”, their home was on the verge of repossession due to City violations.
Dorsey passed at the age of 107 in her bedroom just like she wanted to. Brice was then the new homeowner of Dorsey’s home but lacked the resources to keep up with the renovations needed for the house to be up to code. The City sent a list of violations that led to Brice being taken to court and owing $750.
Included in the court decision was a promise from Brice to scrape and repaint the outside of the home. She called multiple local painters and was quoted for thousands of dollars that she didn’t have. With just a 90-day timeline, Brice contacted us, Walnut Way Conservation Corporation, for possible help, and was greeted by Abraham Larkoh, our former Improvement District Coordinator. Brice was determined to keep her legacy home within the family.
“I love this house. I grew up here,” she said. “This house has always been full of love.”
Larkoh is originally from West Africa and had just joined the team in June. It was just a month later when he gathered our team to explain the situation, we were not for sure if we could help Brice, but we wanted to try anyway.
Our organization approved the plans to push forward and the hunt for local contractors was on. Larkoh and Butts came to see her house two days after her original call, and within one to two weeks, she received a call asking her what color she wanted her house painted.
“It was wonderful. They were lifesavers,” she said.
Due to Brice’s Disabilities, she wasn’t able to help repaint, yet her daughters still participated in the renovation. Now, Brice is constantly being visited by neighbors and community members to see her new paint job.
This story is just one of many lives that we’ve impacted within our 20 years.
“Working at Walnut Way has been very, very happy and very great. The organization will help you understand your role that you are playing, and they will help you with what you like,” Larkoh said. “We have different people from a variety of backgrounds working here. It makes you feel confident.”
The Lindsay Heights neighborhood was a thriving community, adjacent to the Bronzeville neighborhood. It was the home to a plethora of Black-owned businesses from hotels to restaurants, barbershops, law firms, and everything in between, including theaters and jazz clubs.
Right after WWII, the Great Migration had begun where millions of Black families moved from down South to up North for better-paying jobs, to gain personal freedom, and get away from the oppressive Jim Crow laws. Milwaukee was one of those cities, booming with manufacturing jobs. Around the 1940s through the 60s, jobs such as A.O. Smith, Briggs & Stratton and other manufacturers were creating a sustainable income for the Black community. But the window for building wealth in the community was short. By the 70s, mass globalization of industries where labor was sourced overseas, left cities like Milwaukee without jobs and its economic base. By the 1980s, Milwaukee had lost over 80,000 jobs.
Along with a loss of jobs, Lindsay Heights was torn apart from the construction of I-43. Black businesses suffered the most leaving the neighborhood with boarded-up houses, destroyed businesses and a community who now only had the memories of when it was more prosperous.
Our residents never forgot about the magic that flowed through the neighborhood, which is why neighbors like Emma Nash, Larry and Sharon Adams, Francesca Dawson, and community members began meeting in the late 90s which led to the founding of us in 2000, with the mission to restore the culture and economy of Lindsay Heights.
To make an impact, trust needed to be built and the essence of community had to be brought back to the forefront. Neighbors and community members started to engage and talk to one another. Residents were inspired by Boston’s Dudley Street Association, a nation’s model community-development program, to rebuild the neighborhood with a new vision. As a unit, we learned about housing initiatives, the impact of community gardens and other vital knowledge that would push the community towards a better tomorrow.
Community members began taking leadership roles, partnering with local businesses and public agencies all with the goal to create sustainability within the community and City.
By 2003, at the bequest of Nash and our founding members, we stopped a home from being demolished. The house on 2240 N. 17th St. was previously owned by Merle Burnett. Burnett ran a boarding house inside the home with her adopted daughter Debbie. It was during the 80s when the neighborhood experienced a rise in crime, but Burnett refused to leave her home.
Acquiring and restoring the Burnett’s home was an important achievement for our founding members. Her home has become the Walnut Way Community Center: the heart of the neighborhood.
“The community is adaptable, and it adjusts to circumstances as they exist. People are able to absorb their experiences and find ways to adapt to them,” Butts said. “The resilience has allowed this community to sustain itself.”
Part of our mission is to cultivate resident leadership in a way that allows residents to leverage the organization’s resources. We’re intentional about using traditional and non- traditional ways to increase economic mobility.
Born and raised in Lindsay Heights, Butts is the epitome of what happens when you give residents the tools to become leaders in their communities. He’s been a part of the organization for years first as the Treasurer of the board and then appointed as the Executive Director by LaVonda Graham, our Board President four years ago.
“I feel the same way as I started ‘committed’, I knew the organization needed leadership and I was committed to be a positive force in my neighborhood,” he said. “I have deep roots here on Milwaukee’s near northside. It’s important people know that we can build community from within despite any challenges and circumstances we face. We can overcome them together.”
We’ve gone full circle in the work it does for the community. What started as a grassroots organization continues to do the same work and more. Over the years, along with the help of our residents, we’ve produced vegetable gardens, installed 40 rain gardens, provided social and educational resources for adults, making our organization a leader in urban revitalization.
We’ve gone full circle in the work it does for the community. What started as a grassroots organization continues to do the same work and more. Over the years, along with the help of our residents, we’ve produced vegetable gardens, installed 40 rain gardens, provided social and educational resources for adults, making our organization a leader in urban revitalization.
According to our 2020 annual report, we’ve made major accomplishments in terms of environmental conservation efforts. Our landscaping program, Blue Skies Landscaping (BSL), which was founded in 2014, sustains year-round employment for 20 staff and earns over $600,000 a year in earned revenue. Our team specializes in green infrastructure, and small and large-scale projects. BSL maintains 175 of the City of Milwaukee’s bioswales that divert stormwater, completing nine park clean up and restoration projects.
In addition, our organization sold 375 pounds of produce to local restaurants and provided eight youth internships in the gardens. Today, we operate a variety of programs and social enterprise initiatives, including our Growing Youth Leadership Internship, the Community Wealth Building Campaign and their neighborly events. We also run an apparel printing business and sell canned goods on our online marketplace.
One of our major projects is The Innovations and Wellness Commons, a community-driven, cooperatively funded multi-use commercial development on the corner of N. 16th and W. North Ave. Phase I was completed in Oct. 2015 and won a 2016 Mayor’s Design Award and a 2017 MANDI Award. The restored building cost $2.9 million.
The space is leased by Fondy Food Center Administrative Offices, a commercial kitchen for the Milwaukee Center for Independence, Taste of Lindsay Heights, a restaurant incubator owned by us, and Designaway, our apparel printing social enterprise. Phase II broke ground in 2019 and is a 7,853 sq. ft. $3.3 million construction where we celebrated our Ribbon Cutting on December 9, 2020. The space is fully leased to six tenants that are serving our resident needs through employment programs, health, wellness, and education. Tenants include The United Neighborhood Centers of Milwaukee, Milwaukee School of Engineering Scholars Program, Milwaukee Area Health Education Center, Benedict Centers Sisters Program, counseling services by Marrika Rodgers, and nutrition services by Bridgett Wilder, owner of Perseverance Health and Wellness.
We’re dedicated to honoring the legacies of our residents and neighborhood, while also growing with new practices.
Even through our many successes, we understand that the work is never done alone. Looking ahead, we’ll continue to collaborate with residents and partners to better the lives of the people of Milwaukee. We seek out innovative and alternative ways to bring connection, wealth building, and opportunity to our residents to lead them from where they live, in ways that continue to build a legacy for future generations.
“Resilience is at the center of our work,” Butts said. “Our work reaches across the entire city of Milwaukee.”
Help us celebrate our 20th anniversary — With two ways to give this year, your support will help us continue to transform our community.
- MAKE AN ONLINE DONATION – These donations will be put towards the area of greatest need for Walnut Way — it might be used to purchase vegetable seeds for a future harvest, provide workforce development training, or fund programming.
- BUY OUR GARDEN GEAR – In honor of our 20th anniversary year, we’ve designed a bunch of cool merch — t-shirts, hoodies, tote bags, even baby bibs! — inspired by the Walnut Way gardens and how our community has transformed them into flourishing fields of abundance, one seed at a time.
