You Reap What You Sow

For his entire career, my husband, Howard, has been a white man working in a black neighborhood.

And that’s been kind of a kaleidoscope experience, a lot of realities at play. But he was just himself, an East Coast Jewish man, transplanted to the midwest, with all the sensibilities, street smarts, and imperviousness to criticism inherent in his Philadelphia roots. He was never afraid to just walk right into it, to just take his alien self into a gathering, a neighborhood, a controversy and just stand straight up, his feet planted in his old wingtips, his tie tied just so, sometimes a pocket square, sometimes not, and just be who he was, always looking out for jobs and opportunity for people.

He had every reason to feel uncomfortable and to flee to a safer place, maybe a downtown bank or reinvestment corporation where he could ply his economic development skills without, you know, having to mingle with the masses, but that apparently never occurred to him.

He was never a big campaigner about race. He was never one to be embarrassed about his white privilege; he never held back on what he saw that was wrong because it might have had a racial dimension. He just focused on work that would create jobs. Every day was about jobs – how could he convince companies not to leave a hard neighborhood? How could he encourage companies to relocate from the suburbs to Milwaukee’s central city?

So, two months ago, he left the organization he founded 37 years ago. He gave his staff Christmas week off and he walked out of the place he loved without telling anyone it was his last day. Better that way. He’s been hunkered down here at home ever since – starting work on a book and fixing the things in the house that have waited their turn for 37 years.

Last night, though, the fading off into the sunset ceased. There was a wonderful retirement party for him at the Brewers Miller Park – probably 200 or more people – with lots of proclamations and funny stories. Posters and scrolling photos from the past. Friends he hadn’t seen in years, colleagues sorry to see him go. And a crowd that was half white and half black.

I looked around and thought – this doesn’t happen very much in this hyper-segregated city where people have to keep score at every gathering that there are enough of the “other” to pass muster. It doesn’t happen that you just put out a call for the friends and colleagues of a guy and the resulting crowd is so effortlessly and unconsciously black and white, each one with a story about Howard.

About how he questioned them, challenged them, turned them down, made phone calls for them, hired them, mentored them, told them to come back another time, complained to them, lobbied them, joked with them, educated them, and inspired them. Black and white.

It was a sight to see, I’ll tell you that. Like how a farmer must feel on harvest day with the wheat glowing in the sun. He did a good job, a very good job. The best of all jobs. I didn’t always see it while it was happening but I sure see it now.