MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Vel Phillips, Wisconsin’s first Black secretary of state, will be honored with a statue on the state’s Capitol grounds. The Capitol and Executive Residence Board voted unanimously to erect the statue of Phillips, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. Phillips, who died in 2018, broke a number of gender and race barriers throughout her career. She was the first Black woman to graduate from the UW-Madison School of Law in 1951 and the first woman, as well as Black person, to serve on the Milwaukee City Council and to become a Wisconsin judge.
