For Immediate Release

Contact: Kara O’Keeffe
608-261-9596
kara.okeeffe@wisconsinhistory.org

June 17, 2019

St. Matthew Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Listed in National Register of Historic Places

Milwaukee, Wis. - The Wisconsin Historical Society has announced the listing of the St. Matthew Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, in the National Register of Historic Places. National Register designation provides access to certain benefits, including qualification for grants and for rehabilitation income tax credits, while it does not restrict private property owners in the use of their property.

The St. Matthew Christian Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church is significant at the state level for its associations with the Civil Rights Movement in Milwaukee and Wisconsin. From 1964 to 1967, the church served as headquarters of the Milwaukee United School Integration Committee (MUSIC). MUSIC conducted a direct-action campaign against, and legal challenge to, de facto segregation in Milwaukee’s public schools. MUSIC held numerous meetings and rallies at St. Matthew, and the church hosted freedom schools during school boycotts in 1964 and 1965.The Reverend Bertram Simon (B. S.) Gregg, St. Matthew’s pastor from 1960 to 1978, took a leading role in Milwaukee civil rights actions from 1964 through 1967. In addition to serving as treasurer of MUSIC, he was a founder of the Citizens Anti-Police Brutality Committee, which held most of its meetings at St. Matthew Church. Gregg also opened the church for meetings of the NAACP, get-out-the-vote rallies, and candidate forums. MUSIC’s school integration effort, which culminated in a 1976 federal court order requiring integration, was the most important civil rights campaign in Wisconsin’s history. The MUSIC and other civil rights activities that took place at St. Matthew make it one of Wisconsin’s strongest physical links to this important period in the state’s history.

The register is the official national list of historic properties in America deemed worthy of preservation and is maintained by the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Wisconsin Historical Society administers the program within Wisconsin. It includes sites, buildings, structures, objects and districts that are significant in national, state or local history, architecture, archaeology, engineering or culture.

To learn more about the State and National Register programs in Wisconsin, visitwww.wisconsinhistory.org.

About the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Wisconsin Historical Society, founded in 1846, ranks as one of the largest, most active and most diversified state historical societies in the nation. As both a state agency and a private membership organization, its mission is to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories. The Wisconsin Historical Society serves millions of people every year through a wide range of sites, programs and services. For more information, visit wisconsinhistory.org.

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