Vel Phillips was the first African American woman to graduate from the UW-Madison School of Law, earning her degree in 1951. She became a leader in the civil rights movement and Wisconsin’s first African American secretary of state.
New donations to an effort to place a statue honoring Wisconsin civil rights leader Vel Phillips on the grounds of the state Capitol have pushed the effort beyond halfway to its fundraising goal.
The Vel Phillips Statue Task Force announced Thursday that it has received $100,000 in donations from the Madison Community Foundation and Rennenbohm Foundation.
The announcement, which came on Phillips’ birthday, brings the total raised so far to $126,461 toward a goal of $250,000.
The bronze statue would make Phillips the first person of color to be memorialized at the Capitol in Madison.
Phillips, who died in 2018, experienced many “firsts” in her lifetime. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the UW-Madison Law School, the first female judge in Milwaukee County and the first Black judge in Wisconsin.
She was also the first female and Black person elected to statewide office in Wisconsin as secretary of state.
“She served Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin in so many trailblazing roles,” said Noble Wray, a member of the Rennebohm Foundation’s board. “We hope that the statue will serve as a beacon of light for social justice, human dignity and fundamental fairness for all people.”
The Department of Administration is expected to vote in March on final approval for the project. A national request for proposals will go out this spring to artists, and that statue is expected to be created this year and installed in early 2022.
Michael Johnson, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Dane County, started pushing for the statue this summer in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests over police brutality. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers created an advisory committee in December to work on the idea.
Meanwhile, restoration work on two Capitol statues — one of abolitionist Hans Christian Heg, the other of a woman symbolizing Wisconsin’s “Forward” motto — that protesters tore down during the demonstrations should be done by July. The repairs are expected to cost a combined total of about $81,600, administration officials said.
The statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, a soldier who fought for the Union Army, is photographed on the anniversary of his death, Sept. 19, 2008, in Madison.
The statue of Colonel Hans Christian Heg, commander of the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Civil War, pictured here in 1950.
Norwegian-born Col. Hans Christian Heg of the 15th Wisconsin Infantry was mortally wounded fighting for the Union Army on Sept. 19, 1863, and died the next day. This statue of Heg by Norwegian-American sculptor Paul Fjelde, shown here in 1990, was erected in 1926.
Portrait of Col. Hans Christan Heg, commander of the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War.
A lithograph titled "Charge of the 15th Wisconsin Regiment at Chickamauga; death of Colonel Heg," shows the mortal wounding of Hans Christian Heg.
Hans Christian Heg's death is reported in the State Journal on Sept. 29 1863.
Chickamauga National Military Park in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, is pictured here in 2013. The location is near where Wisconsin's Col. Hans Christian Heg would have fallen on the battlefield.
State Journal story on Sept. 23, 1924
Story from the State Journal on Oct. 18, 1926
View from the east corner of the state Capitol looking past the Hans Christian Heg statue with King Street in the background, circa 1936.
The statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg pictured outside the Capitol on Nov. 11, 1997.
Giorgio Gikas, president of Venus Bronze Works Inc., Detroit, uses a pressure washer July 15, 2002, to clean the statue of Hans Christian Heg that sits on the Capitol Square on the corner of South Pinckney Street and Main Street. This is the first stage of the cleaning and then waxing that takes almost a day to complete. Heg was the most noted Norwegian-American to serve in the Civil War.
Lisa McLaughin of Madison tries to fit a Solidarity T-shirt on the statue of Hans Christian Heg on Capitol Square on March 12, 2011. Tens of thousands of people crowded outside the Capitol during Act 10 protests.
The statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg is covered in at the State Capitol is covered in snow in Madison on Feb. 2, 2016.
Two protesters carry a leg from a statue of Hans Christian Heg, a Union Civil War colonel who fought for the end of slavery, during demonstrations in Madison on Tuesday. Protesters also tore down the state's "Forward" statue, assaulted a state senator and set a small fire in a city building Downtown.
The base of a statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, a Union Civil War colonel who fought for the end of slavery, remains after it was torn down by protesters during demonstrations in Madison on Tuesday night.
Protesters dump a statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg into Lake Monona on Tuesday night in Madison.
An empty pedestal where the statue of famed abolitionist Col. Hans Christian Heg once stood. It was a scene from around the State Capitol on Wednesday after a destructive night of protests.
The head of the Col. Hans Christian Heg statue is still missing and will likely need to be recast from an existing statue in the Racine County town of Norway.Â
The recovered remains of the statue of Col. Hans Christian Heg, after it was torn down last month.Â
