St. Ann Center for Intergenerational
Care Bucyrus Campus 
stanncenter.org 
​414.210.2430
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Milwaukee 53205-53206 zip codes, officially rated low-income in Wisconsin’s largest cultural and economic city, is home to more than 39,000 people. Although not without positive qualities, challenges to these predominantly African American communities are reproduced in many low-income neighborhoods around the country. Women are the majority of the population. Unemployment and incarceration rates are high. A significant percentage of its public school’s students are eligible for free or reduced lunch programs. Disparities in education and income compromise access to healthcare and result in unfavorable health outcomes for many.

​“I’ve voted in every election since 1951.”

Do you remember the first time you voted?  Oh, yes. When I turned 21, my mother came to me on election day and said, ‘ok put your clothes on. It’s time for us to go vote’. I’ve voted in every election since then. My mother and father had to walk a long way from where we lived to get to their polling site. (In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 reducing the voting age from 21 to 18 in all federal, state, and local elections.) ​

Why don’t more people vote? I don’t really understand it. I don’t think that a lot of people realize that they really don’t want us to vote because they know how much the Black vote counts. Plus so many young people don’t know their history. My daddy left Arkansas because he got into a fight with a white man who stole his dog. He told my mother to take us (the children) and stay with her parents until he could send for us. Mother begged him not to leave. But he said, ‘honey buns, you know what they will do to me. I got to go.