Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down legal
segregation most African-Americans in Wisconsin
and Milwaukee remain far behind whites in jobs, safety, housing, family
stability and education. Once the classroom for some of Milwaukee's brightest
leaders, Steuben Middle School in Milwaukee is a school in decline, a school
parents avoid. It will close at the end of the 2003-2004 school year.
Violence and the fear of violence plagues African-American students at
Steuben and elsewhere in Wisconsin, where blacks between the ages of 15 and
24 are 18 times more likely to die from homicide than their white peers.
Milwaukee Juneau High student Jestin Fayne was among the young black students
murdered in 2003. Death and violence among black students is nothing new to
Kenyattia Cagle, 16, Fayne's classmate, who has attended eight funerals for
slain classmates and friends.
