High school students rediscover, rededicate Black hero from Wisconsin’s history

South Milwaukee High School, in partnership with the Wisconsin Black Historical Society/Museum, have rediscovered a musical pioneer who led racially integrated youth choirs that traveled around Wisconsin starting decades before the civil rights movement. 

Very little information is publicly available on the life and legacy of Professor J. Howard Offutt, but music students at South Milwaukee brought the professor’s story back to life at a concert on May 14. 

The choir students had been learning of Offutt’s work, sifting through hundreds of original documents and homemade recordings, with the help of Clayborn Benson at the Black historical society. The students even had a chance to interview a living member of the former choir. 

“You don’t get to do this unless you are a really good master’s student or you’re getting your PhD, you don’t get access to this,” Aimee Swanson, the music educator at South Milwaukee, told her students. 

The students presented their findings in different formats, including through exhibits, art, and poetry, during the May 14 event. The event was nearly entirely designed by the students. 

“They chose pieces to perform that exemplified Professor Offutt and the story they wanted to tell about him,” Swanson said. 

A Chicago actor, Allen D. Edge, also made an appearance at the event. He played Offutt himself and helped guide the performance. Offutt was born in Glencoe, Illinois. 

Offutt, known affectionately as “Pop” or “Papa,” started integrated choirs in the Depression-era 1930s. His joyous choirs attracted hundreds of students and performed more than 500 concerts, including one at the inauguration of former Wisconsin governor Walter Kohler in 1953. 

The performances, which happened in communities like Sheboygan and Door County, continued into the 1960s, a pivotal moment in America’s and Milwaukee’s history. 

Offutt was a military veteran and longtime leader at St. Mark’s AME Church in Milwaukee. He led multiple choruses before his Young People’s Chorus coalesced at the Urban League Community Center. 

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra held a tribute concert for Offutt in 1982. Offutt would die four years later. 

Benson introduced Swanson to Offutt’s story due to a shared love of music. Upstairs at the historical society are records pertaining to Offutt, including portrait miniatures that Offutt kept of his students. There are dozens of portraits and writings to “Pop” from both white and Black students. 

During his life, Offutt was considered one of the most prominent men in Milwaukee, but little information is available until now. Among his accomplishments, Offutt wrote two pieces of music to help raise money for St. Mark’s Church when it was torn down in Bronzeville to make way for a highway. 

He led an all-white summer musical program in Williams Bay, near Lake Geneva. He organized festivals at the old Lapham Park in Milwaukee. He is said to have planned the music for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Milwaukee in 1964. 

“The man was the epitome of integrity, expecting it and living it and he had a way of creating that in everyone around him and all of his students,” Swanson said.

The students want to get the story out, including asking Wisconsin PBS to feature Offutt. 

“Why isn’t he online?” Swanson said her teen students asked her. 

She responded, “Yea, how do you get him there?”

“And how many other people are not.”