Felmers O. Chaney
In last week’s Milwaukee Courier we paid repects and celebrated the life of one of Milwaukee’s media pioneers, Mary Ellen Shadd-Strong who died on Nov. 27, 2012. This week, we celebrate the life of another Milwaukee pioneer, Felmers O. Chaney who died the day after Shadd-Strong, on Nov. 28, 2012.
Unike Mary Ellen who left Milwaukee, Chaney stayed and made Milwaukee his life’s work in the area of civil rights.
Chaney grew up in Spooner, WI, the son of a dairy farmer. He noted that he encountered just one instance of racism-a racial epithet while growing up there. He came to Milwaukee in 1941 to work as a machinist, he was trained for the job, but found that as a Black man his opportunities were limited. The only work that he could find was pouring metal in a foundry. He chose to work in construction and later in a tannery.
Four months after being drafted in 1942, he was sent to officers’ candidate school in Virginia. he graduated as a second lieutenant and commanded troops in England and France.
Once back in Milwaukee he returned to his tannery job. And after the constant urging from his barber, he decided to take the test to become a police officer. In 1947, Chaney joined the department. He as the fourth Black person on the police force.
In 1954, Chaney performed well on the sergeant’s exam. He was asked if he wouldn’t rather be a detective-same pay, but he would not supervise people. He took the job, and the news was reported under the headline: “Negro name to a sergeancy.”
Chaney soon clashed with a detective lieutenant named Harold A. Breier, who would later become chief. After a series of slashings in the neighborhood, Chaney once recalled, Breier proposed that police go into taverns and “stand everybody up against the wall and search them for knives.” Chaney responded by saying, “Lieutenant, that is not proper. It is an illegal search, and I will not participate in it.”
In the mid-1960s, Chaney supervised about 20 officers in the department’s 5th District, two or three who were Black. He had a reputation for fairness.
During the 1967 riots, Chaney had another run-in with Breier, who was then chief. Breier issued an order to arrest anyone found outside after curfew. Breier was less than pleased when Chaney arrested a young White man under this order.
In 1969, Chaney went on disability because of an old back injury. Around the same time, he began working on development in Black areas. He became president of the Central City Development Corp., which built the Central City Plaza, a motel and shopping center at N. 6th and W. Walnut Streets, the area that he knew so well from his foot patrol duty days. Chaney also became a founder and president of North Milwaukee State Bank, Wisconsin’s first Black-owned bank.
He retired in 1972 due to disability from the back injury, but was called back in 1976. He retired for good in 1983.
The relationships that Chaney made in his police career helped when he emerged as an advocate for inner-city development in later years when the same area would no longer be the Black-owned business mecca. In the aftermath and following his retirement from the Police Department, he found himself heading the Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP as president for 12 years.
He led the organization in its fights ranging from housing and jobs to education equality in Milwaukee. He pushed for minority hiring and representation at the Bradley Center when it was being built. In 1988, he criticized the Legislature’s plan for an all-Black Milwaukee school district.
He would also serve as president of the Milwaukee Urban League, and in 2000, Gov. Tommy Thompson dedicated the new men’s correctional center on N. 30th St. as the Felmers O. Chaney Correctional Center.
Chaney returned to Spooner for a while, where he had family, but retured to Milwaukee in recent years.
Chaney is survived by his wife, Jessie Chaney and a sister, Bernice Chaney.