A storyteller, historian and community organizer, Adam Carr has devoted his career to telling the untold stories of our city. He started his career in community-based work as a producer for 88Nine Radio Milwaukee. Since then, he’s become a resource for helping people understand the city they live in, whether through public art collaborations, journalism, bus tours or in conversation with civic leaders.
I grew up in the abundance of Milwaukee. Attending great public schools and playing in great public parks, I felt something that’s scarce in this city: freedom and connection. When I started my career, I began to realize I had grown up inside of this really beautiful, complex story I didn’t know, and that really lit a fire in me. I was confronted by the untold stories of those around me and how little I knew. The average person growing up here is offered so little of what this city has to offer.
Telling stories is a way to address the bitter truth of what’s happened in our history. We want to get to reconciliation and repair, but we can’t do that without addressing the truth. We have to grasp the complexity of how we got here and the roots of our situation before finding solutions.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
At the same time, there are so many people who have established incredible bodies of work, durable communities that have developed their own culture here. We’re almost proud of how we treat the city as small, but Milwaukee is a big, amazing place already. It’s not just potential. The problem is, we’ve become so complacent about systems that reinforce the status quo.
Telling stories is a way to address the truth so we can create change, while also finding inspiration to resist oppressive systems collectively. A lot of my favorite stories to tell in Milwaukee, whether the story of the open housing marches or the Chapman Hall takeover at UWM, are about collectivity. While so many of us just accept the status quo, there are people banding together who see solutions in their neighbors. I think that togetherness is the way forward for Milwaukee. We don’t need a superhero to save us. There are already beautiful things happening in every community.
– Adam Carr
A fresh perspective on … SEGREGATION
People often frame segregation as a choice by people of like races living around each other, but that’s not inherently problematic. Segregation, in reality, has a long and intentional history that’s favored whiteness above Black and brown people. That’s the segregation we should be talking about and challenging.
