Interview with Geneva Brown

Brown.G.2043_07.10.2020

Wed, Nov 02, 2022 11:26AM • 46:29

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, madison, community, campus, black, students, chicago, law school, called, party, white, milwaukee, uw, wisconsin, culture, bsu, langley, attacked, talk, liberal

SPEAKERS

Angelica, Geneva Brown

Angelica 00:01

Okay, perfect. So this is Angelica Eusery with Miss Geneva Brown, and we're gonna get started. So if you could tell me about where you're from, like high school stuff. And then what made you come to UW?

Geneva Brown 00:18

I am born and raised on the south side of Chicago. I grew up in the Inglewood community, which is in the news a lot, including to President Trump commenting on my own neighborhood, which is funny. Yeah, exactly. I, you know, went to high school and Grammar School in Inglewood community. You know, it started out really nice. My family moved there in 1970s. So, you know, we saw it will go from like a majority of white polish community to all black community within 10 years, you know, drugs have started to come in and white flight came in, it's like the, it's like a microscope or what happened to a lot of the black working class and middle class communities across the country. I'm sure you saw that in Detroit, too. But for me, it was I was one of those kids who could play outside, we had recess outside, I didn't have a closed campus, we were free to walk off and do things it was back in the old days. You know, I love my childhood. I grew up on the block, I grew up playing with people in my neighborhood. But it just got bad. So we moved away from there. But I ended up going to Lindblom Technical High School, which is locally is a big deal. You know, it's a probably couldn't get in now. So it's a very sharp school produces a lot of great people, we haven't really going on three plus years as an alum. But you know, we're really a tight knit group of people. Chicago in the 70s, and 80s is a Chicago now, I'm starting to see old enough to start to see cycles. So you start to see a spike in drug transactions and violence. And those are the things that made me want to get out of Chicago. I started out school in Chicago State, I really didn't find it challenging enough. I wanted to call and, you know, going to school, Lincoln Park is nice, but it was very expensive. And I wanted more (unclear). I wanted to get out of Chicago. So I wanted more campus environment. So what's more campus than you know, UW. So and it was a huge party school back then I'm sure it's much more time now. Right. So. So after I ended up attending UW I kind of in between freshman and sophomore credits, so I start enroll in now fall of 85.

Angelica 02:49

Okay, that's interesting. So, before this, I had been looking in the archives at the Daily Cardinals. And you and Mr. Hawley popped up a lot with like talking 00:03:00about BSU. And like all that type of stuff. So can you talk to me a little bit about your experience with being a co president? And like the ZBT party, like what what was it like in leadership there for you.

Geneva Brown 03:20

I started out being a just an active member. But the feeling back in the 80s, they didn't really recognize what it was like to be a person of color coming from a segregated off black environment to call into a segregated or white environment basically. So the culture shock and the not having safe spaces is what you call it now then we just needed places to hang out where we could be ourselves not be judged, and not be looked down upon or treated in an inferior way. The BSC was that for me, so we ended up being a very active member of the BSU. And I was the vice president under Phil Hamilton. Phil did not fulfill his year. So as vice president, I was just kind of there the second semester on my own. And we would still, I believe, at the time, the ZBT party, I was organizing a picnic for the graduating class of 86. I remember working on the flyers and going into the park. And that evening I had a roommate and a friend named Mark Beatty. And you know, there they were like there's this big, huge racist thing on the front lawn of this fraternity on Langley, and it was like at the very end of Langley, so it's a huge house. So we See this like Fiji party, but it obviously had African stereotypical roots to it, even though they claimed it was a different thing party. So, you know, we, I just I always felt like it's it's not up to other people to address issues of racism or when they're in problems, you have to step four, I was the vice president the issue, if I wasn't understanding who was. So it was just like me and my to my roommate and my friend, and we wrote up signs, and we basically were outside picketing. And one of the evening news shows caught wind of it. And we were on the nightly news that Saturday, and the next Sunday, it blew up, and then the black pen Hilson Association supported the BSU. And we came together, we marched down Langley, and that's basically how the student activism of that period started.

Angelica 06:04

Okay. Because I've heard so much about like, read about it. Talk to Mr. Hawley. I know, someone talked to Mr. At Ashby, Solomon Ashby.

Geneva Brown 06:20

You have done your work.

Angelica 06:21

We're trying. And it's just like, how did the University administration respond to you guys? And your activism? Like, Were they supportive? I know, they had the you guys came up with the steering committee report like that came out, and then the Madison plan. So how do you feel they responded?

Geneva Brown 06:44

Well, we had to keep having racist incidents, they, you know, most administration's wanted to be one and done. So we have a dialogue. We had a student forum, we discussed, we discussed things, but things kept happening on campus, we had, I believe, was a black female basketball player that was confronted by some crazy racist, we had people who were being called out on a regular basis, I can't remember all of the incidents, but they were all fairly quick and together. And so we at least had enough of a rapid response to these things. We were always in dialogue with the Dean of Students, it was Roger Howard and Mary Rouse, or the Dean's of students at that point when I'm doing my administration there at the BSU. So I think there was a recognition that we can't just talk people out of this. So what Charles and Solomon were more of the dialogue, and more of the they work more behind the scenes, I was more upfront, I was more confrontational. Holly was both. So but I was the one who was making speeches, I was the one who was in the press. And I was the one who is demanding change. And working with Solomon and working with Charles as a unit and also with the black students behind us and also support sympathetic white students. We were able to make change, we there were a lot of meetings that Sonny and Charles attended, that really were eventually became the steering committee for the Madison report. So the and Charles was the head of that committee, it was the Holley report. And it was adapted by the University and the changes there are still present today that to create a multicultural center, where students of color have a place where they can call their own and feel safe to have programming to have a Director of Multicultural Center who knew how to program 00:09:00to, you know, keep a critical mass of students on campus and engage culturally not just academically and to make demands of like, at least some back then we were asking for classes on multiculturalism, multiculturalism is kind of a worn out phrase at this point. But back in the 80s it was something new, just like being PC but not canceled culture PC but like really acknowledging that other people exist outside of the European culture. So the hopefully the steering committee was adapted the there were changes that were permanently made. The Chancellor Shalala came at that time and it was adapted into the basically the Madison plan which she was able to use to catapult herself to fame as well, but there were a lot of hard work done by regular folks sitting around the table that summer in summer, 86 and 87 academic school year. And it was a revolutionary idea at that point, we just didn't want to march up and down Langley or have demonstrations in front of basketball, we really wanted to make concrete changes. And that's what we did. David Wright is also a person who was working behind the scenes. He wasn't a person who was upfront, but we coalesced really well, we had great chemistry, and we work together to make that change.

Angelica 10:34

Yeah, yeah, I did, like, um, I don't want to interrupt you. But um, yeah, I'm really grateful for the work you all putting in, because I wouldn't be here without, like the steering committee, and then the Madison plant, because y'all made it safe and like made this university more aware of like real life issues that are still happening. And you talked about the black woman who was attacked in ADA. So can you talk more about like, the backlash of that, and the university response to that, and how it made you feel as a black woman, like, did you feel safe on campus?

Geneva Brown 11:16

In general, you just know that, like, in whenever you have alcohol, and culture, that is has stereotypes about who you are, sometimes those things are not a good mix. So routinely, we were not welcomed in places where people just generally party. You know, there, there were some significant things that happen. Before the racial blowup, we had a case where the Minnesota basketball players, this is about 85,86, were charged with raping a young white woman, and they lost their 00:12:00scholarships. And the case went to trial, they were found not guilty. But then there was a lot of obviously, that time you get to the point where you've been exonerated, you've lost your scholarship, and your name has been dragged through the mud. It was a highly contentious case. So but the whole gist of it was that the basketball players were hanging out on campus, these were black men who was socializing with white women. And after that, it's it seems to be that whenever we congregated to clubs around the campus area around the downtown area, we weren't necessarily well. So there were just certain clubs that you went to. We did hear about black people who would go on State Street who'd be called names. And there were there would be physical confrontations of going back through a vague memory of I remember one young man who was tapped by some white students. He was a member of a fraternity on Langley, or they were sitting in the room talking to him, looking at his eye swollen. And he was obviously attacked. It was a racist attack. And his his white frat brothers, I think we're didn't really know how to navigate that. So he kind of let us know, meaning Charles, and I , you know, he had suffered this, and we talked to him. And this is not just a frat culture, the frat culture was the focus, but we had to open it to the campus wide and then community wide. There were serious problems and Madison. At the time, you also had people moving up from Chicago and from Milwaukee going to Madison, who didn't attend the University, but Madison offered a higher quality of life for their excellent schools, it was safe. So people were there taking advantage. And you saw there was a lot of racial racial tension in the community as well.

Angelica 14:11

I never heard about the black man of being attacked.

Geneva Brown 14:15

I can't remember what frat it was, I remember the house, but I can't remember the frat. And there was one frat that it was called in Around the World party. So in, in the black room, there was fried chicken and watermelon and people had their face faces painted. There are a lot of people who weren't involved in the parties on Langley who had who had always black faces. Those those you know, there is no social media back then. So those those photos are dead. But basically this blackface thing is really old. And so those are the things we were protesting against around the world party students being attacked the unwelcome atmosphere in jail We're all not just on campus, but in the the 00:15:00ancillary community of UW as well. It was a hectic time, let me tell you.

Angelica 15:14

So knowing all that, what made you stay UW, and go to law school there.

Geneva Brown 15:22

Because, frankly, the one thing was (unclear) did was it invested in education. And so I was able to obtain great education. Through the school. I got offered, basically, I was a member of a disadvantaged community, first generation attorney, I get federal and state funding to help me go to law school and law school wasn't ridiculous the way it is now. And frankly, Charles was two classes ahead of these. So it was kind of like, I think we all ended up going to law school, you know, Charles, and Solomon. And so, frankly, when you go through that kind of intense, wielding a personal power, and you know that you can work together to make change, I don't think there's anything else that would have satisfied me except well in the law school to continue that. And we had great students in law school that I laid a foundation for us, there were active students of color who had created like affirmative action plans for the moot court and for, for us to be represented throughout the whole culture of law school. And that's a whole another conversation. But I just felt like, what do I do with all this energy, I have now that I have gotten the Madison plan now that I've graduated, it took a couple of years off, and nothing else made sense to me except to go to Law school. I knew Madison, I didn't necessarily want to go through an intense academic program and live in a new place. I had friends and I had a support system there. And that was the other reason.

Angelica 17:09

So besides, like, it'd be in Law school. And like, it'd be you have graduated from undergrad and stuff. What was it? Like? Because I was in the early 90s, in the Madison plan, already been a thing. So like, do you feel like the campus was different, it was more diverse.

Geneva Brown 17:30

It was it was the 90s versus the 80s. Remember, when I went to school during the Reagan era. So it was a kind of a reaction to the Carter administration into the liberal 70s and 60s. So you have a drawback of, of kind of the liberal ideology, you have people who are conservative, kind of it mirrors what's happening now. But it's now is like a freak show compared to what was going on back then. But 00:18:00you have a retraction of liberal ideology, you have like culture that is, wants things the way it used to be. So in the 1980s, you know, like people were on the ascent. If you look at our demographics and our wealth accumulation in the 80s, we're doing pretty well. We are also fighting. This is at the same time, of course, crack is making an inroads into our communities, which will eventually destroy a lot of our homes and communities. But just before crack hit, we were doing well, we were, you know, getting jobs. We were getting real estate, we're starting businesses. And we were feeling our power. I mean, I worked as president for the Jesse Jackson for President campaign. We were very active on campus, you know, it was it was a different time. But in the 90s when you have Clinton, who is the president, and he's from the south, and he's going on Arsenio Hall plan, the trumpet, you know, people felt like it was a different atmosphere. It was more open. programs were gonna open you had a Department of Justice that pursued racist companies and try to uphold civil rights. It's every administration is different. So in my era, it was conservative when I was there, but in Moscow, and in the 90s. It was a different administration. And frankly, there are some great professors, Professor Linda green Professor Jim Jones, who were black professors, Professor Jim Jones was the first Black Professor at Wisconsin and he was like our father figure there. He would, he would always have conversations with us. He would always tell us the history he was. And Professor Linda Green was our constitutional law professor, you should actually reach out and talk to her. She's, she's a great resource for you as well. And she's still on staff. And, you know, she, um, she was from California. You know, I remember when Compton blew up after the Rodney King verdict came in. And she was just discussing what her personal. It's rare to have a constitutional law professor who has had these kinds of encounters with the police. She grew up in LA so she had her own stories. So it was a different atmosphere. The law school was probably more progressive than the campus itself, to be honest.

Angelica 20:37

Okay, that's, that's interesting. And

Geneva Brown 20:47

I know my answers are long. So if you want to interrupt me feel free.

Angelica 20:50

No, no, it's okay. You talked about being the president for campaigning the for the Jesse J. Jesse Jackson campaign. That was a UW, you do that?

Geneva Brown 21:02

Yes. Yeah. Yes, I was. Probably my last year at he ran an 88. And actually got to know a lot of the progressive Madison community, you got to know a lot of people who worked in government, I met a lot of people from the 60s who were there during the its heyday as a radical campus. So it was actually great. I love meeting older people and listening to them and talking to them. And so it was a great time for me to I was kind of leaving the BSU behind, and I didn't know where I was gonna go. But working for the Jesse Jackson campaign, I almost became a delegate, but I got voted out. I didn't have enough political clout back in the day, but I was really great period. And I got to meet him. And I got to be on stage when he's made a speech at the Capitol. So it was it was a quite, it was only in my heyday, you know, politically. I have not been that active in a campaign, probably since Obama. Until (unclear)

Angelica 22:18

this? See this? That's the positive experiences. I like to hear about. Think I wanted to go back to talking about like, just how hectic it was like how campus climate was in response to like the apartheid, the woman being like, every day, it was it seems like it was something going on, which are just like, what was that like?

Geneva Brown 22:49

It was exciting. It was nerve racking, my grades, just plummeted because I was more active on campus and forgot, or didn't focus on the reason why I was in Madison. But you know, people would. We had meetings with the community we had, we would testify before committees at the state capitol. I was doing speeches in the community. I was doing local press. But you know, we have weird stuff we had, we would get hate mail. We were the target of a lot of conservative press. You know, what the I forget the name of the conservative paper isn't a Badger Herald? No, I think. Yeah. So they were like, the National Review for campus or whatever the is it slight whenever the conservative version, the Cardinal was a liberal, the Badger Hill was a conservative. So you know, it was it was a heady 00:24:00time. And, you know, meeting with the administration meeting with students doing just being active period. The thing is to be I had no consideration of time or boundaries, it's just like yet dragging on things as they happen. If someone had a racial incident, and we had to respond to it. If we had requests to speak, we would go we were organizing marches and speeches. It looked like weekly at some point. I don't even remember going to class at some point. So I'll be honest, I would walk into class. I think it was when things blew up towards the end of the first semester, I think in 86, 87. And professors would be looking at me like I was crazy, like Where have you been? And if you you will never see my GPA but if you look at you later, Oh, man. But I got out so.

Angelica 25:08

I, I'm just so inspired by how y'all got the media's attention without like phones and like, the computer stuff like, what was that like, as students, as black students, I think this University always been in the press for something like, not y'all were doing something, but like, in response to like protests and stuff.

Geneva Brown 25:33

It was weird. It was weird, because you have a core group of friends who know you being goofy, and you're partying and you go into class, but then there's this whole other persona that you have as an activist. And that didn't stop me from partying. But it was kind of weird to like, go from a protest to a party. You know, I'm still trying to live my student life and still trying to be a college student at a party school. But, you know, some of that I had to draw back on, you know, because I was president of, or CO president of the Black Student Union. It was, it was I'm not a person who was used to being I'm not shy, but I'm a bit of an introvert. So to be recognized, and to have people who express their appreciation, or I never really had anyone who was openly hostile to me. The university listened to us, we, I think we created a platform because we weren't people who are seeking attention. But when incidents arise, and it's a combination, it's just like when there is a level of frustration and a community and there's no healthy outlet for it. It it either distorts into 00:27:00dissent that's healthy, or else it distorts into stuff like looting or violence. So luckily, we had a healthy outlet because we're in college. And because we have a platform we can use. We did have the Capital Times did a story on us before everything really blew up. And just you know, what is the atmosphere like for the black students? I think there there is a sense that there were some undertones of hostility, or there are undertones that this is not the liberal institution people claim it to be. I think that was what was most shocking to us. You know, when you first come, you hear about this for me in the 80s. It was the radical Madison, of Sterling Hall bombing, the Mifflin street riots, all of these legendary things, the anti war movement, but I think we were the first to introduce racism issue to mass, which they were there was a part of the community. I was shocked that Oh, we are racist here. You There were over in covert racism, there's that white liberal patronizing racism, which is what sometimes what you encounter as well, we speak for you, we know what's best for you. So it was us confronting it and speaking for ourselves and creating something for not just us, but for future. And obviously, I'm happy to talk to you because it's stuck.

Angelica 28:32

So my next question you'd like I got all this attention from the media. And now I'm struggling with people trying to separate the Madison community like the Madison the city and UW, like, a lot of the attacks like white men who don't go to old white man like will come and attack students like Madison, Madison residents attacking UW students, like, Was that an issue back then like that? They try and say like, that's a UW issue. It's not it. That's a Madison issue, because it's badger city, like you can't separate the two. So like, what was that like?

Geneva Brown 29:13

We had both. We have. I remember walking on University, and front of a club, and it was late Saturday night and I was called to Nigger bitch, and I had to keep my calm, keep it together. I got home and you know, I remember doing a speech about that in front of basketball hall about being called that. Now, was that person a townie? Or was it a student more than likely could have been? We had students who came from other campuses who were to literally white who came from more conservative environments. We'll come to Madison the party. I don't know who it was. But I know the effect on me the anger and Uh, you know, it's you 00:30:00don't know what's gonna happen is it's gonna turn physical? Or is this just him seeing somebody who's not used to seeing? So those, I don't care who it is its campus, the campuses in Madison. We're all Madisonian. So they like to don't let them separate. The two. One is the other. The University employs so many people who are Madisonian. educates Madisonian. So how do you separate? So they're trying to say that intelligent educated people don't do that. That's what the underlying kind of thing they're trying to do is separate the campus from the community and don't let them get away with it.

Angelica 30:45

Right? Because you can't ,my I go to UW but I live in that, like, I don't live on campus, but I still live in Madison. So

Angelica 30:57

because the stories,

Angelica 31:00

even just yesterday, a black woman was attacked at women's by a white man, he ran up on her family because they were like, trying to in the parking lot. Again, she pulled up behind him and he got out and like, sort of attacking her. So it was just like, how did you cope with being a black woman here? Like, seriously?

Geneva Brown 31:21

Oh, it wasn't easy. It was not easy at all I would. It got to the point where we couldn't wait it out. I mean, I left for two years, left a year and moved back to Chicago. It wasn't great theory, by the way. And I came back. And I realized, what I understand now is that I had to get out leave my own community of the Southside of Chicago ghosts in place to get the tools and be in an environment. That environment has helped me professionally, to deal with racism when I walk into a courtroom, a classroom or to right now trying to building my own, hopefully nonprofit on the south side of Chicago to address the lack of legal needs here. So it's full circle. Now for me, I'm home. So the thing is, whatever you're facing there, read. Right now I'm reading Ida B. Wells. She's a woman who came from Memphis to Chicago. And if you read what she's going through, it puts everything in perspective. Just know that we have had progress. And hopefully what I've gone through, you shouldn't have to go through, at least on campus with create, I always felt like wherever I've been, I have at least left some legacy behind that someone can take, or the a more comfortable environment for people of color, and black, black people in particular. So while you what you're doing is recording history that somebody else will pick up one day, and they will know your experiences, and they will know my experiences. And hopefully, 00:33:00the community will learn and adapt from our experiences to be better and more welcoming. And it's not just people on the south side of Madison and saying we have a black population, it's respecting people's differences. And frankly, right now, we we are in unprecedented times. In the in the 80s. It was people who was more white backlash to the liberal culture from the previous decades now, people are just frightened because the white standard of living is falling dramatically. And we understand how to do that, you know, white resiliency versus black resilience is very different. We have had to suffer through oppression, racism, the criminal justice system, have enough votes blocked all sorts of things. So we navigate whatever is put in front of us. But when you see white people react like attacking a black woman, what is she symbolize to him that he feels the right to do that. What is the what your empowerment means that now you have to take all of your frustration of your life out on this woman and before her children or her family. So I guess we'll always have that fight. But hopefully, there are tools to help you along the way. Now as far as individual physical attacks, call the cops or defend yourself. I'm a public defender, you have a right to defend yourself.

Angelica 34:30

This room.that was just a personal question. Because it's hard, it's hard.

Geneva Brown 34:40

So remember, what you're doing is you're gonna leave a foundation as an African American scholar, that someone else will pick up your work or some other persons will respect what you're doing. You know, I'm sorry that some basic things have not changed. But I don't recognize this Wisconsin. The Wisconsin that I was at, you know, it least had a liberal tone to it now it just sounds crazy.

Angelica 35:08

It is.So my next question like, What was it? Now that you've heard some of my experience like what is like being in Madison out? What was Madison, like when you were leaving from law school?

Geneva Brown 35:22

Madison, I had, I was, it was this into being a public defender in Wisconsin in Milwaukee. So I didn't go very far. But those, those communities are night and day, the things that I missed about medicine was it just wasn't it the social inequality, the income inequality was not as extreme as it was in Milwaukee. And the treatment of people in a criminal Justice's system was not as severe. So I 00:36:00was a public defender in Milwaukee for nearly three years. And those are probably some of the three roughest years because if there, this is a city that has a predominant or not predominant, but a large black population, that really, to me, has no political voice. And that was deprived of what a lot of other black communities have in Chicago. I feel like there there is enough of a class difference where you can be black, whatever, if you want to ride motorcycles, ride horses, if you want to do gaming, whatever, there's a black version of everything. In Milwaukee, it was a it's a working class to poor community that has been deprived of resources and outlets that other black communities have. So going from Madison to Milwaukee, I certainly appreciated the quality of life I had there. And it was I just felt like there was a bright line in Madison that people just didn't fall below that I did see in Milwaukee. I mean, you had Jeffrey Dahmer living not far from the courthouse, taking black men from these clubs and basically killing them and, and cutting up their bodies. And it was known in the community, but there was nothing done about it. You had him. He had this poor little, I think he was Vietnamese young man who escaped his apartment. And the police turned him back over. So this is a young man of color, he's Asian. But in the cops are joking about this being a lover's spat, those officers were fired and rehired afterwards. But it's just that the idea that you have that level of policing that basically ignored the serial killer in the community, the black, I think the black gay community knew about this, but there wasn't a lot done. I think it's something like to happen to Madison, I just don't see that happening. I don't see that people would just allow things like that to happen. So I think there's a with poverty and injustice, people just get numb. They don't want to talk, they just want to go home. And they want us to that to the next day. And that's the difference that I saw when I left Madison and went to Milwaukee, Milwaukee made me realize it was a heart larger, much larger picture of inequality through the criminal justice system, which was new to me at that time. And, you know, frankly, that's everywhere, but it's just I've never saw such a concentration of it. And if you look at the statistics for black incarceration, Wisconsin is in the top two or three, I think

Angelica 38:52

that's actually insane. Because

Geneva Brown 38:56

it is it is, you know, our I worked in Kenosha and Milwaukee and I would tell my 00:39:00clients who came from Chicago or came from others, like this is not a place to play. You know, the this is they you can live with different type of life, meaning you're not certain things and you can just be a straight arrow even being a straight owl wasn't necessarily going to save you, you know, we have innocent people locked up all the time. But just to warn them how you're treated here versus how you treated in Chicago for petty stuff is gonna be different. And they realized it you know? Yeah, so passion since I graduated law school has been criminal justice, criminal law so that that's all I talked about. Now. That's how I measure things.

Angelica 39:44

That's really that's fair. I was gonna ask like what your experience was like being a Wisconsin Public Defender, but that encapsulated that was

Geneva Brown 39:56

well you know, since then I was a became a law professor. are at Valparaiso law school and I was able to teach about my experiences, unfortunately, my school close. So now my goal is to run my own nonprofit law firm on here on the south side. I've traveled to Nevada Bend, Indiana and Wisconsin, it's kind of like I'm being called home to do some work. And we need some work here. Let me tell you,

Angelica 40:24

in the States, you see the same kind of thing within the justice system?

Geneva Brown 40:29

Absolutely, absolutely. Um, Indiana, in mirrors, Wisconsin. Chicago is just the sheer number of people we are, it's the largest criminal justice system in the country. It's a countywide system. And we had our incarceration rates in , even in the county jail, were through the roof, like 10,000 people were incarcerated at a time. Right now. It's below 5000. But you have a community that's reeling from all the violence that's happening now. And what I've learned through my master's that I get later on in criminal justice, and being a PD is that crime is always the last resort of income inequality, of racism, but also personal choices. But when you don't give people choices, they do what they have to do to survive. So my goal is, hopefully to do what I'm calling a reentry program where you know, to kind of clean up a person's record, if you've been a felon, if you have drug drug charges, I've written a lot about this, I have a lot of scholarship on it. So a person who's convicted of drug felony after the Clinton administration, and after a lot of laws that said, once you, you know, we kind of throw people away like garbage, you know, once you are convicted of a felony, 00:42:00once you have a drug offense, you can't get a loan, not loan, but you can't get a grant or you're not allowed to get certain licensing, you can't live in public housing, there's a lot of negative federal laws that kind of make people that you keep people in that same offender status, even after they pay for their crime, and then wonder why to keep doing what they're doing. So my goal with the Southside Legal Center is to try to level the playing field, get people to clean up the records there expungement. And hopefully, to come work on locally to work on things to get them back to voting, to getting vocational when they can take care of themselves. And to kind of clean up the record. I mean, it's hard enough being an African American, a black person in this culture, but those additional strikes really put you out to pasture. And it's just hard to get regular employment. And now we're entering a very competitive environment. We don't mind immigrants, we don't like other people. So it's, you know, no one is going to pick up and you know, go to bat for offenders, when you don't have a job or when your housing shake. So hopefully, that's what's on the horizon for me.

Angelica 43:24

Hey, man, I hope that works out. And I hope you get to take that nationally because we need you.

Geneva Brown 43:32

Appreciate it.

Angelica 43:35

So like to wrap things up? How do you think your time at the UW influence like who you are now and the work you're doing now? Because it was like, I see a connection. So like, what do you think?

Geneva Brown 43:53

What the UW showed me is that it honed my leadership skills. It gave me the intellectual foundation for me to be able to be a professor and activist scholar and a leader in my own community. You know, it, it showed me that we can work with different groups who aren't like us, whether it's liberal whites or Latinos or new immigrants. While I was there, there was a burgeoning Gay Rights Movement. People are colors definition has been expanded to include as you know, Muslim students, East Indian students, Jewish students, if you look at what the law school defines as people of color, all of those things have opened up since I've been at Madison. So it's been part of a more plural culture. And it's not just a black and white world, too. So those are the things that I've taken with me from there. But the most important thing was just holding my leadership and having the intellectual foundation, I'm appreciative of the quality of their 00:45:00education I get there. Being able to stay in contact with my law professors, I was able to attend Professor Jones's memorial when he passed, which was very touching to me because he was always a grizzly old man. And he always, you know, but, you know, my favorite saying from him as a lawyer is, he said, When you attack me, I'll attack you more. You know, if you kick, what does he say, if you kick my dog, I kick your mother. He'll hear, he knew how to level up when it came to that. And so those are the things that I've taken with me as well. You know, it's it was a life altering experience to get off the bus, the Badger bus or the Greyhound bus back and walk around the campus for the first time and I still visit Madison occasionally. And you know, it has a lot of fond memories for me, you know, you'd see these old people when I was in my 20s I see these old people walking up and down State Street. Like when I can't wait to get out of here. I ain't coming back. As that was a lie. You know? Even if my experiences were mixed, they were important to me in a foreign neutral who I am so I'm appreciative of that.

Angelica 46:22

Okay, that's beautiful.