When Leon Todd was 30 he was part of the Golden Age of Public Education

When I was 30

Leon Todd

Part of MPS' 'golden age'

By Joe Ahlers

MKE Magazine

Posted: Feb. 15, 2007

Leon Todd was ready for corporate America, but he wasn't sure corporate America was ready for Leon Todd.

Although groups like the Ford Foundation were encouraging black families to move north to work on production lines, even a young, educated black man like Todd didn't think his career would go any further than barber, funeral director, craftsman or minister.

Todd was, after all, the only black student in his middle and high school classes. When he enrolled at Northwestern Lutheran College in Watertown, school officials had to tackle an ordinance forbidding blacks from sleeping overnight in the city.

"You experienced life separately," Todd said. "The civil rights consciousness of being a second-class citizen with all the limitations blacks had - secondhand bubblers and bathrooms - it was something you just had to accommodate yourself to."

Todd accepted an offer to attend the UW-Madison business school for graduate work, unsure how his mostly-white counterparts would see him, and he was convinced no one would hire him after graduation. Success, however, eventually found its way to Todd in ways he hadn't imagined.

His first professional job came just months before he turned 30. Three years later in 1973, he ran (unsuccessfully) for the Milwaukee Public School Board. "It was like the Supreme Court. They already had their token black. Room for one, regardless of the population," Todd said.

He was elected to his first term on the board in '75, a time he calls MPS' "golden age."

"We were very progressive in our thinking about public education," he said. "(Milwaukee) was just beginning to have real racial problems, but MPS was at its peak."

Todd has experienced his share of controversy, including a firebombing of his house in the 1990s and having a politician say he should be hanged for "betraying" the black community.

Today, Todd is running again - in the Feb. 20 primary election for the School Board.

"I want to . . . return the best years of public education to Milwaukee," Todd said.

When he turned 30 Nov. 11, 1970.

Who he was then Finance project manager, Wisconsin Telephone Co.

Who he is now Age 66, retired business technology consultant. Married to Barbara with four kids: Sara, Leon Jr., Emily and Ann.

Education Todd graduated from Wisconsin Lutheran College with a degree in Latin and Greek classics, an MBA from UW-Madison and a master's in cultural foundations and education from UW-Milwaukee.

Nazis in MPS In a debate over whether MPS should start a German immersion school, a group of Nazis asked the board to separate the races. "I remember sitting at School Board meetings and hearing about how my brain weighed less than the average white brain." While some board members literally turned their backs on the Nazis, Todd listened despite whole-heartedly disagreeing. "This is a democracy . . . because of the experiences and struggles with race relations I had been through, I made the effort to listen to (all ) people."

Magnet schools During Todd's first term, the School Board created magnet schools such as High School of the Arts and the language immersion schools. "Magnet schools succeeded where neighborhood schools failed because it was stable, and inner-city kids moving from place to place isn't healthy. If the home is unstable and life is unstable, the child is lost."

McGee In 1996, Mike McGee Sr. praised a firebombing of Todd's home while his wife and children were inside, and current Ald. Mike McGee Jr. said on the radio last December that Todd should be hanged for betraying the black community after he supported McGee's recall. "(McGee) is not a role model to his family, and I'm not afraid to stand up and say that. We can't let that kind of attitude shape the leadership of young black males."

Life at 30 Todd saw himself as "the role model in school, (showing people) that blacks weren't really different. At 30, I started seeing the way life was going for Leon Todd and people of my color. Things finally started looking up."

Leon Todd: When I was 30

Leon Todd Today