Jack Hurbanis

On April 14, the Emory Global Health Institute launched a contest for authors to write a children’s book to explain COVID-19. The catch was, they only had until April 29 to submit their final drafts.

For cultural institutions, like the Milwaukee Art Museum, the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly painful. Like other groups, the museum closed its doors back in March and was forced to find alternative ways to engage with the community.

Brigid Globensky, the senior director of education and programs at the museum, says this experience has been a crash course in digitizing their work but one she thinks will ultimately make the museum stronger.

In another timeline, this would have been the week the Democratic National Convention came to Milwaukee. The event was expected to bring tens of thousands of people to Milwaukee and bring millions in revenue to the area. But then the coronavirus pandemic hit, upending everything.

How do you use the word protest? Often, we think of a protest as a call for change. But there are actually many different forms of protest.

As protests over racial justice and police brutality continue around the country and in Milwaukee, we explore the different types of protest and how, despite their differences, they all are described using the same word.

Pamela Oliver is a professor emerita of sociology at UW-Madison. She has spent decades studying the different kinds of protest and their efficacy. She starts by describing the basic approach to protesting.

The faith community played an important role in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. And that legacy continues today. In Milwaukee, a number of faith groups have led and joined in the ongoing protests over racial justice. One of those leaders is Pastor Kenneth Lock.

He's with Evolve Church, a non-denominational church that's active in supporting the community. Lock is also a barber and the head chaplain for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Racial difference has been front and center in recent political and social discourse. But between all of the slogans, it’s easy to overlook the beauty and humanity.

The Cedarburg Art Museum is trying to bring some of that beauty and humanity to a town that’s less than 1% Black.

The Fourth of July is fast approaching. And with COVID-19 infections on the rise once again, many people are looking to their backyards as the best option for celebrating the holiday this year. 

People will be bringing the grills out of the garage and firing them up with hopes of making tasty or at the very least edible treats. To help get us started, Milwaukee Magazine’s Ann Christenson shares some of her grilling tips and tricks.

It seems like the world has been fascinated by Mars for decades. Since unmanned missions began in 1960, there have been 56 missions to Mars from countries around the world. While less than half of these missions have been successful, the problems haven’t stopped us.

Right now, many of us are engaging in conversations about race and systemic racism in the United States. In some ways, it’s a conversation our country has been having for generations. But our nation’s legacy of racial injustice is often obscured by the books we read in school. That’s left some people to ask: how can I learn more?

The answer: more books.

Social upheaval has grasped America from coast to coast in the last few weeks. It’s difficult to wrap up the pandemic, economic anxieties, racial justice, and elections all in one bundle — but they all played a hand in driving the protests over the last month. 

Jeffery Winters is Director of the Equality Development and Globalization Studies program at Northwestern University. He says much like the election of Donald Trump in 2016, many people were surprised by the magnitude of anger and frustration displayed during the protests for racial equality.

Many organizations are finding new ways to engage with the public during the coronavirus pandemic. Like most places, the Milwaukee Public Museum has remained closed. But a new partnership with Google is allowing people back inside the museum without leaving home.

The recent protests in Milwaukee have drawn a lot of comparisons with the Civil Rights protests in the 1960s. Most notably, activists marched for 200 consecutive nights from 1967 to 1968 to protest the city’s fair housing standards.

Wisconsin is known for having some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. Currently, women can only go to four clinics in the state to access abortion services. If they can get appointments at these clinics, additional restrictions such as state-directed counseling and a 24-hour waiting period require multiple trips.

Lake Effect's Joy Powers talks with Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett about protests, policing, COVID-19 response and the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

We’re only halfway into 2020, and already Milwaukee has faced so many surprising and extraordinary challenges. A global pandemic shut down businesses, kept our communities in isolation, and brought the economy to a screeching halt. 

Protests continue to happen around the country following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck and a black woman named Breonna Taylor was shot several times in her bed in Louisville.