A vote to decide whether a memorial should be built at a Milwaukee park where the dismembered remains of Sade Robinson were found last year has been delayed due to racist backlash against the proposed project.
The day Robinson was reported missing, authorities found her car scorched in an alley and were called to a Lake Michigan park, where someone found her severed leg washed up on the shore.
Members of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors Parks and Culture committee planned to vote on Tuesday to build a memorial at Warnimont Park, the same park where Robinson’s leg was found.
However, shortly before the vote, committee members reported that they were sent a string of racist emails and comments opposing the memorial project.
“A flurry of racist emails saying why should Black folk get this when white folk don’t get this and turned it into this issue where it didn’t really belong,” Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez told WISN.
“I also received several of those emails that I thought were pretty despicable,” said Jack Eckblad, another supervisor. “There were plenty of folks who just had honest, empathetic things to say, but there were others who really crossed several lines.”
Robinson disappeared on April 2, 2024, the day after she went on a first date with her accused murderer, Maxwell Anderson, who has been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, arson, and mutilation of a corpse.
A confidential informant told investigators that weeks before the date, Anderson had planned to kill Robinson and scatter her body parts in different areas.
Recovery efforts to find the 19-year-old’s remains lasted weeks. Volunteer search teams joined law enforcement agencies and ended up discovering other parts of Robinson’s body on the shorelines of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin and Illinois.
“Gender violence is something that’s not really talked about as much, especially violence against women of color and Black women specifically,” said Supervisor Martinez. “We need to honor victims of gender violence, women of color.”
“I believe we were talking about a bench, and so the public reaction was so disproportionate to what this really would have been,” said Supervisor Anne O’Connor. “It’s incredibly unfortunate. It is a reflection of the darker element of humanity.”
After a county supervisor spoke to Robinson’s mother about the extreme feedback, the board unanimously voted to scrap the original proposal and find another way to raise money for the memorial.
“There was an outcry saying taxpayers of Milwaukee County ought not to be paying for a memorial simply because, not my words, these are terms that were used, simply because another Black person has lost their life,” County Supervisor Felesia Martin told Fox 6.
Anderson’s trial is scheduled to begin in May. He remains in jail on a $5 million bond.
