Source: http://thesqueakycurd.com/
Oct 2, 2026, 3:00 PM CT
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There is something profoundly cynical and irritating about using Joshua Glover to sell Black Wisconsinites a story about Republican inclusion.
Yes, tell the story of Joshua Glover and the nearly 5,000 Wisconsinites who rallied in Milwaukee in 1854 to rescue him. Glover had escaped slavery and was being held in a local jail under the Fugitive Slave Act. Area residents risked arrest, violence, and imprisonment because they believed that slavery was wrong and that Glover deserved his freedom. But as the kids used to say, “this ain’t that”.
In a 12-minute documentary, Liberty at Stake: The Joshua Glover Story, Wisconsin republicans have turned this courageous act into a Republican campaign commercial. The filmmakers connected Glover's rescue to the birth of the Republican Party. Republican groups have been promoting the short film, enlisted Black Republicans and local Black leaders to be a part of the project, and used Black and brown children to help entertain unwitting attendees.
I want to be clear: telling Glover's story isn’t the issue. The problem is Republican leaders using that history to suggest that today’s GOP is the natural heir to that legacy. They have tried it before, trotting out Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. photos and invoking their names as proof that the Republican Party stands for freedom and racial equality. Again, “this ain’t that”. None of these men would likely be welcomed in today’s Republican Party for their stances on racial oppression, discrimination, and unequal political power.
All three men, in varying forms, confronted racial oppression and demanded fundamental changes to America's political, economic, and social systems. To invoke their names, while avoiding the substance of their demands, is to sanitize their legacies and shield the changing values of the Republican Party. Black folks are being asked to believe in the aspirations of a film, rather than confront the realities of harm that they face at the hands of republican rhetoric, policy, and laws.
Perhaps they want us to ignore the November ballot question that would prohibit state and local governments from implementing certain DEI initiatives. They are hoping we won’t remember their work to gerrymander districts, refusal to formally recognize Black History, and efforts to denounce Black History Month resolutions. A 12-minute film can’t erase recent work to diminish voting rights, steal elections, call Black voters dishonest, and diminish the very tools communities have used to confront racial inequity.
Our history is not a campaign prop that can be repackaged to manufacture political credibility. Joshua Glover was a human being fighting for his freedom. The Wisconsinites who helped him were people confronting a moral crisis. The people who rescued him were not looking for Black votes or credit. They were not trying to rehabilitate a political party. They acted because they believed something was wrong and they were willing to risk everything to make it right. That is the real lesson of Joshua Glover, and it has been marred by republican attention-seeking and manipulation.
Michelle Bryant is host of “Say Something Real with Michelle Bryant,” a morning drive political talk program on WNOV 860AM/106.5FM. She is a political strategist, president of CMB Consulting & Associates, and a weekly columnist for the Milwaukee Courier Newspaper. A former Chief of Staff in the Wisconsin State Legislature—where she also served as Budget and Policy Director and Clerk of the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety—Bryant brings decades of experience in legislative leadership, campaign management, and public policy. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and a longtime advocate for civic engagement and equity.
