A new permanent public sculpture honoring Vel R. Phillips, a Milwaukee trailblazer who gained prominence as an attorney, politician, jurist and civil rights activist, has been installed at the Downtown plaza that bears her name. The piece is named after the motto that Phillips lived her entire life by, “I Didn’t Do It Alone.”
The sculpture was created by internationally recognized artist Karyn Olivier and commissioned by the Department of City Development; the project serves as a creative representation of Phillips’ work in breaking down social and cultural barriers for women and women of color.
Phillips, who died in 2018 at the age of 94, initially gained political prominence when, at the age of 32, she became the first Black person and the first woman on the Milwaukee Common Council. She was also the first Black person elected to statewide office in Wisconsin and the first African American elected to the Democratic Party’s national committee.
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“I Didn’t Do It Alone” honors several pivotal aspects of Phillips’ life of service and her fight for liberty.
“Today is a really special and important day for those of us that remember Vel and what she fought for and what she made possible for each and every single one of us,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson told a large crowd that gathered in the rain on Friday for a public unveiling of the project. “Vel was a trailblazer in every single sense of the word. She used every door and every position that she had to open doors for other people who were coming behind her; Vel understood something that we still have to reckon with today and that’s that progress does not happen with just one person.”
The memorial artwork features three key components – two stone architectural sections with figurative sculptures, a bronze desk and a bronze chair; along with six outward-facing figures that represent citizens, activists and leaders who worked with Phillips for change. The linked-arm citizens symbolize the unity of the 200 days of open housing protests and stand as protectors of liberty, justice and democracy, the ideals for which Phillips fought.
“The desk in the empty chair is an invitation,” Johnson said. “Vel challenged us to get involved, she challenged all of us to stand up, she challenged all of us to do our part.”
The ‘I Didn’t Do It Alone’ memorial was funded through a tax incremental financing district, with an all-inclusive project budget of $600,000, approved by the Milwaukee Common Council.
“Vel Phillips gave a lot, so much in fact that her accomplishments, her outsized impacts as a legislator, mentor and leader, will have life, long beyond our time here,” Olivier said.
Olivier said she struggled with how to commemorate someone as influential as Phillips.
“It’s a question I faced in a very practical way as I imagined a public artwork that would honor her without having a figurative representation of her,” she said.
The selection of Olivier for the project followed an international artist search launched by the city in 2023. A 16-member committee made up of artists, curators, collectors, community members and city representatives reviewed 60 submissions before selecting Olivier’s proposal.
“I hope that this public art is a reminder to us all that we should continue to dream big dreams, and that we can change and improve this city, this state and this nation if we work together,” said Alderwoman Milele Coggs, who led the effort to rename a nearly five-mile stretch of North Fourth Street to Vel R. Phillips Avenue in 2018.
Phillips’ son, Michael Phillips, said his mother often worked long hours at home in her ongoing effort to better the world around her.
“I’m here not as an elected person but as a son and looking at the piece that Karyn put together, it put me in mind of other desks that my mom actually had,” said Phillips, who like many in the crowd wore a pin with a headshot of his mother. “She had a home office; our kitchen table.”
Phillips praised the artwork as a lasting legacy of his mother’s work.
“This is fantastic,” Phillips told Milwaukee Magazine after the unveiling, as crowds of people gathered to get a picture taken in front of the piece. “Who knew years ago when they first proposed this that it would actually happen, I thought there’s no way in the world it would.”
