It’s time for our Monthly with Mosley conversation. Judge Derek Mosley is a municipal court judge for the city of Milwaukee, who will soon become the director of Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center.
Every month, he joins Lake Effect to share restaurant recommendations, unpack our legal system, and share his personal research on Black history.
The holiday season is slowly creeping up and in a not-so-distant past, before the rise of online shopping, the beloved Sears Catalog would have shown up at our doorsteps. In the late 1800s, the catalog changed how Americans purchased things, giving new freedom to get what wasn't available at the local general store.
And at the same time, it created a new, equal buying experience for Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. Judge Mosley explains that general store owners prioritized white customers during this time. And it would not be until these customers had left that any Black shoppers would be helped.
"So to be truthful, going shopping was stressful in the sense that it could take hours to get your shopping done and and you weren't always offered the the prime items," Mosley says.
When the Sears Catalog was released, the shopping experience for Black Americans was forever changed. Anyone could buy anything from underwear to houses, and all you needed to do was submit a mail order to get your purchase. And without even knowing it, this new shopping experience even created a new music genre.
"Sears made it available for African American musicians to get their hands on cheap steel, guitars, tambourines, and harmonicas," Mosley explains. "And so these things are being sent to places like the Mississippi Delta. And they were creating this wonderful music that took over that name, The Mississippi Delta Blues."
It was an unintended coincidence that The Sears Catalog created an equal shopping experience for Black Americans, but they fed off it to make it easier.
"[The Sears Catalog] went a long way for not only the dignity of African American shoppers, but it went a long way in trying to make, you know, the things that we buy and sell, equal for everybody," Mosley says.
Monthly with Mosley features Judge Derek Mosley. He joins Lake Effect every month to share restaurant recommendations, unpack our legal system, and share his personal research on Black history. Judge Derek Mosley is a municipal court judge for the city of Milwaukee for his day job, and he is also known as one of Milwaukee’s food influencers.
