Lucille Berrien
Political activist from Milwaukee
Lucille M. Berrien (April 12, 1928 – May 22, 2026) was an American activist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a member of the Black Panther Party. She was the first African-American to run for mayor of Milwaukee.
Background
Berrien was born on April 12, 1928. She got married at the age of 16 and had her first child at 17. At the age of 24, in 1953, her husband was killed in the Korean War. Berrien subsequently moved with her two young children to Milwaukee. She worked for a time as a domestic worker in Bayside and Whitefish Bay homes.
Political career
Berrien ran for mayor of Milwaukee in 1972, becoming the first African-American woman to do so, but lost the race to incumbent Henry Maier. Though she had recently joined the Black Panther Party, she ran a non-partisan race for mayor. Berrien also ran for State Treasurer of Wisconsin in 1990 with the Labor–Farm Party of Wisconsin, but lost to Cathy Zeuske.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lucille Berrien” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.