MILWAUKEE — Derek Mosley spent 20 years on the bench as a City of Milwaukee Municipal Judge. He's now the Director of the Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education.
He sat down with TMJ4's Andrea Williams.
"It really is good to see you," Williams said. "I think the most pressing question I have for you today is, how does a guy who grew up on the south side of Chicago and who has an admiration for the Bears, end up loving the City of Milwaukee the way that you do?"
"That's a great question," answered Mosley. "Milwaukee's a great city and Milwaukee actually reminds me a lot of Chicago when I was growing up. Milwaukee's been really good to me, so this is home."
Judge Mosley has been on his new job for about two weeks, but something that hasn't changed is his passion for teaching Black history through social media.
"Black history is everything to me. Why I got on this journey in the first place, I remember I was in grade school and a young kid came up to me and he said, 'what have Blacks ever done in history?' and it really hit me. And so, I went to my history book, and you look through the history book and the only thing you saw with Black people was a little section on slavery and Martin Luther King. It was at that moment I realized I need to learn more about who I am, where I came from, and where we all came from," said Mosley.
Judge Mosley is a little-known Black history fact himself. When he was elected as a Municipal Judge 20 years ago, he became the youngest African American judge elected in the state of Wisconsin.
"What's so great about that for me is one of my idols was Vel Phillips and I got to be sworn in by Vel Phillips. Vel Phillips was the first African American female judge in the state of Wisconsin," said Mosley.
"Judge Louis Butler was your mentor, right?" asked Williams.
"You better believe it," said Mosley. "When he was going, ascending up to the Circuit Court and then the Supreme Court that led to an opening in his seat and it just seemed like it was made for me, right I have to run for this seat."
Judge Mosley has been highlighting Black history facts on the internet for over a decade.
"You presented something recently that really brought home the fact that Black people spent more time in slavery than they have as free people," said Williams.
Mosley responded, "A lot of people weren't familiar with that statistic and that was probably one of the posts that I got the most 'I had no idea', 'Wow' all these responses to that, but that's the truth."
Learning all aspects of Black history in some states in America has become controversial, but that's not going to stop Judge Mosley.
"If the schools and the states don't want to teach this history, I'm going to try my best to get it to the people the best I can," said Mosley.
In Florida, Duval County has banned three children's books on baseball legends Jackie Robinson, Hank Aaron, and Roberto Clemente.
"Breaking Babe Ruth's record is amazing, right? It's an amazing accomplishment, but breaking Babe Ruth's record when you get mail that says I'm bringing a gun to the stadium and if you break the record, I'm going to shoot you on the field. That changes the whole dynamic. So that's what makes that Hank Aaron story so important to tell," said Mosley.
It was civil rights icon Ruby Bridges that said, "We may not all be equally guilty, but we are all equally responsible for building a just society."
"So when you see little Ruby Bridges walking down the stairs in 1960 desegregating the schools in New Orleans...it's always a black and white picture. There's a color photo, but when you see the black and white photo it immediately makes you think it happened a long time ago, and she's alive and breathing. She's 68 years old, that's it."
