On Monday, community leaders and residents gathered in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood to celebrate the renaming of a park. The 4th and Mineral Play Area is now Clementina Castro Park.
Castro was a civil rights leader and advocate in Milwaukee during the 1960s and 70s. She was a founding member of La Causa, an organization that serves families and children.
Castro was pivotal in organizing the 1969 march to Madison to protest proposed cuts to welfare benefits for people in poverty. She advocated for Milwaukee's families, welfare rights, and economic justice.
Betty Glosson, a civil rights leader and friend of Castro, was present at the park renaming.
“The fact that we used to march in dangerous situations, we established a trust and a love for each other. That remained throughout the years," says Glosson. "I'm just really glad to see her being honored with this today. And I'm glad that I'm alive to see it.”
The work to rename the park began just over a year ago. District 12 County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez explained.
“I had seen a lot of pictures of her and I had heard a lot of her story, and then it had turned out that her grandson is someone I went to high school with. So I started speaking with him, and then I got connected to his dad and we started talking a lot more about her contributions and it just seemed like a solid choice to make it happen,” Martinez says.
The park is just blocks from where Castro lived and began her work.
Martinez says he hopes this leads to more recognition of how women and Latino leaders have shaped Milwaukee.
Clementina Castro’s son, Genaro Castro, celebrated the park renaming and the doors it opens for Latino representation in the city.
"A whole bunch of people who collaborated North Side and South Side — and it's just an honor that they are recognizing her as a wonderful Latino woman, strong woman for the young ladies that are coming up, to [show], you know, anything that's possible," says Castro.
The park naming also comes as Milwaukee and other communities are deciding whether to rename streets and landmarks dedicated to Cesar Chavez. The New York Times uncovered allegations of sexual abuse against the labor leader.
Milwaukee’s Cesar Chavez Day celebration was cancelled, and leaders say there will be a discussion about renaming Cesar Chavez Drive.
