The Coggs political family has served the people of Milwaukee for over 70 years, and it all began with Isaac Coggs’ election to the State Legislature in 1953.

Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Isaac Newton Coggs served a year in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II and then received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1948 before settling in Milwaukee. Here, Coggs became heavily involved in his community. He served as the president of the Northside Milwaukee Businessmen's Association, as a board member for the local chapter of the YMCA, and as an active member of both the American Legion and Disabled American Veterans. Shortly after marrying his wife, Marcia, in 1952, Coggs won a seat in the Wisconsin State Assembly, becoming one of the first African Americans elected to the state legislature. 

Coggs served six consecutive terms in the State Assembly, gaining himself such a reputation fighting for equality that he was commonly referred to as ‘Mr. Civil Rights’. In June of 1961, he famously introduced a Human Rights bill that provided for an equal housing law and an equal opportunity employment commission. The bill was heavily challenged from all sides, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) called for protests outside the Madison capitol to support Coggs, who was the only Black member of the Wisconsin legislature at the time. While the bill would eventually fail, the efforts from the public in support of it would help build the foundations of other, more successful equal housing protests in Milwaukee later in the 1960s. 

Coggs' time in the State Assembly ended in 1964, when he secured himself a seat on the Milwaukee County Board as the supervisor of the 6th Ward, the first Black person elected to the Board. He served only one term before stepping back from an active public role altogether as he fell ill. He passed away in 1973 at the age of 53 after a long battle with cancer, leaving behind a political legacy continued on by his wife, Marcia, and eventually their daughter, Elizabeth.

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This entry is part of an ongoing collaboration between America's Black Holocaust Museum and Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum. This entry was written by Sophia Furman.

“‘Mr. Civil Rights’: Isaac Coggs Dead at 52.” Printed in the Milwaukee Star Times on April 12, 1973. 

“Coggs, Isaac N. 1920.” Wisconsin Historical Society. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS6558.  

“U.S. civil rights activists occupy Wisconsin State Capitol to demand human rights act, 1961.” Global Nonviolent Action Database. Accessed December 13, 2024.https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/us-civil-rights-activists-occupy-wisconsin-state-capitol-demand-human-rights-act-1961.