Molly Beck

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mandela Barnes is the kind of politician Wisconsin rarely sees: He's 32, unscripted, and when he's sworn in Monday, he will be just the second African-American to be elected to a statewide office.

"On the trail, I used to say I’ll be the first openly black (candidate)," Barnes quipped — acknowledging the hurdle skin color has created for previous black candidates and the significance of his election as the state's first black lieutenant governor.

When Velvalea Phillips ran her first campaign for city council in 1956, she shortened her name to Vel to conceal her gender and wouldn't include a photo in campaign literature to shield her skin color from voters' eyes, according to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

"I asked her, even back when I was in the Assembly, what was it like running statewide — being a black woman in the '70s — and she said, 'Nobody knew I was black,' " said Barnes.

Decades after Phillips made her own history with her election as secretary of state — and just months after her death — Barnes achieves another state milestone with his election.

"He’s really the first black person to knowingly be elected statewide, so technically he’s the first," said Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee. "In a time we lost her, we gained him. Like a baton passed in some ways."

Making presence felt

Wisconsin is known as among the worst states by some measures for black families and children to live, and has a rate of incarceration among black men that is unmatched.

By his election, Barnes said he wants to be an example of possibility for black children and a dose of reality for others.

"It’s twofold: For people who aren’t black in the state of Wisconsin to know that it’s not everything you see on TV. Everything you read in the news, especially coming out of the city of Milwaukee," he said. "For people who are people of color in the state who have never been told that they can reach for something higher, or that opportunity exists for them, or (were told) you come from here, your chances are limited ... it’s bigger than me. It’s more than just me being elected as the first black lieutenant governor, it’s about making sure that example is present."

Barnes assumes the office after a high-profile and expensive race that resulted in his running mate, state schools Superintendent Tony Evers, besting Gov. Scott Walker — one of the most formidable politicians in state history.

During the race, Barnes emerged as a dynamic running mate for Evers — who is just a couple of years older than Barnes' father.

The race against Walker featured some mudslinging standard to any close contest, but Barnes' presence introduced an element he questioned as being tied to his race.

At first, it was three newspapers in separate counties mistakenly leaving Barnes off sample ballots published for readers to familiarize themselves with candidates.

Then, the night before the primary election, a Milwaukee TV station displayed a photo of Barnes while reporting the death of a different man involved in a recent car crash.

The next day, a Green Bay TV station showed a photo of a white lawmaker to announce the news that Barnes had won the primary election.

Though Barnes at one point had to jokingly remind voters he was indeed alive, he shrugged off much of the slights as a "weird movie."

In the last weeks of the campaign, Barnes was falsely accused by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch of kneeling during the national anthem — a form of protest some black athletes have used to condemn racial injustice. She later apologized.

"We all knew what that was about and it was something I should have expected," Barnes said. "It’s a subtle reminder: hey, there’s a black dude running."

Young lieutenant governor

At 32, Barnes is younger than many of his predecessors — Kleefisch was 35 when she took office, and the very first lieutenant governor in state history was 39.

It's a distinction he's used to. Barnes was 25 when he was first elected to the Assembly in 2012. And after skipping a grade in school, Barnes started college when he was just 16.

"I would not recommend it," Barnes quipped.

Barnes, who is an only child, was pushed to excel in school by his parents, Jesse and LaJuan Barnes, in all sorts of ways: from quizzing Barnes on current events at the dinner table, to enrolling Barnes in tap dance and gymnastics classes to make him a better athlete.

"My parents just put me in everything … they just knew that it was better I had my time occupied than not," Barnes said. "(Dad) wanted me to do tap dance because Shaq did tap dance — (he) wanted me to be quicker on my feet. He wanted me to do gymnastics so I’d have better balance."

If you ask Jesse about his son, it was winning second place in a state spelling bee that comes to mind first. To LaJuan, she remembers "he was the best baby in the whole wide world."

Both mentioned Barnes was "chunky" as a child.

Now retired, Jesse Barnes worked third shift at General Motors' Oak Creek plant and LaJuan Barnes worked as a physical education teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools. Both were active in the auto workers and teachers unions — work their son cites as laying groundwork for his interest in advocacy.

"Jesse would say 3.2s don’t drive cars around here," LaJuan Barnes said about her son's grade point average at Marshall High School and his parents' high expectations for academic excellence. "(Mandela Barnes) always wanted to be a leader. He always wanted to hold a position in everything he was involved in."

And voting was required — even when it didn't count.

"Every election, I had to go with my dad to go vote and he'd give me a sample ballot," Barnes said. "Even before I could vote."

Tim Cole, who became friends with Mandela Barnes in kindergarten at Milwaukee's Holy Redeemer Christian Academy, said he recognized a potential of leadership when the two played football together in middle school.

"He took wins and losses very seriously," Cole said. "It was like, if we were winning he was like the first guy to pat you on the back to hype you up if you had a great play. And in the same return if we had a loss, he was the same guy to pat you on the back and say it was OK. But Mandela shed a couple tears on the football field, too. Anything he did he wanted to do well."

Kelly O'Keefe-Boettcher, who was Barnes' English teacher for three years, said Barnes was "the light bulb of the classroom," whose parents wanted to know whether their son was helping others as much as they wanted to know whether he was paying attention in class.

"I remember parent-teacher conferences — (they would ask) is he helping the classroom, is he a leader, is he working … the expectation that my son is being his best self," she said. "When you name your kid Mandela? ... I think they gifted him with this sense that we want you to carve a really big path for you in this life."

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Jesse Barnes, 65, said the decision to name him after Nelson Mandela wasn't meant to put that much pressure on his son.

When Barnes was born in 1986, former South African President Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned for anti-apartheid political advocacy.

"This was pre-release," he said. "It was like, who in the world is doing something that’s going to affect generations to come? I didn’t want to go back and look in the Bible or history books ... And if Nelson was ever going to get released or not — that was a name that I felt I wanted to put on my son."

At first, nobody understood the significance. But "it helped people remember him because he had a unique name and then by the time he’s in elementary school, Nelson gets freed and then all of a sudden he’s the popular kid."

Barnes attended Alabama A&M University — losing his first campaign: freshman class president. He graduated with a degree in mass communications in 2008 just as job prospects for college graduates were scarce at the peak of the Great Recession.

His interest in politics was piqued in 2009 as he worked on a narrowly unsuccessful congressional race in northwest Louisiana. After that, he worked without pay for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett as an intern — where eventually he was persuaded to take a job there as a receptionist.

"Me on my intern high horse turned down (the) job and then my dad yelled at me about that because I was living in the house that he owned," Barnes said. "He wasn’t getting any rent that he could have been getting. So he got upset. Visibly. Audibly upset."

After taking the job, Barnes was introduced to the task of fielding constituent concerns.

"For some reason, the mayor’s office is the first place people call," Barnes said. "I got to hear everything, and so after that ... it’s like well all right, I think the final component — the last ingredient — to get me to the place I was like, all right I want to run now."

Barnes' first experience as a candidate was successful: defeating Rep. Jason Fields, a fellow Democrat.

Being a Democrat in a Republican-controlled Legislature was eye-opening, he said.

"People always say it’s a slow process and I didn’t really realize how slow it was," he said. "People were like, 'How you going to get this stuff passed through with a Republican Legislature?' And I’m like, 'Guys, people just haven’t been talking about these things in the right way. Once they hear the idea there’s no way they’ll say no.'

"And, obviously, they said no. They said no a lot," he said. "That was the biggest surprise — going there thinking that a good idea would have a chance."

Barnes waited just a couple of years before making the next leap: This time running against Taylor, the longtime state senator who now supports him. But Taylor won by a healthy margin.

"I learned more when I lost than when I won," Barnes said, noting he underestimated the deep connections Taylor had established with her district.

Taylor said in the 2016 race, Barnes "had not really accomplished anything and this really gives him a second opportunity for him. ... It's important that he chooses something he starts and finishes."

"Mandela is young in his process," she said. "I hope for some fast growth and some boldness and I don’t think boldness is something that Mandela shies away from."

Barnes has drawn heavy criticism from Republicans, who say he's presented "extreme views."

"From dismissing large portions of Wisconsin voters to accusing our president of wanting to create a ‘superior race,’ Mandela Barnes has shown he'll cater to the far left while completely ignoring critical parts of our state," Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Mark Morgan said.

In the final months of the general election race, Barnes took hits for saying he wasn't interested in trying to find votes from people who supported former President Barack Obama in 2012 and then backed President Donald Trump in 2016, and also for saying Trump's immigration policies were "a race to create a superior race."

He also was criticized by the state Republican Party for once praising the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the former pastor to Barack Obama who declared "God damn America" in a sermon and said "them Jews" wouldn't let Obama talk to him.

Barnes swatted back at Republican critics, noting Walker in 2015 said there were only a "handful" of moderate Muslims and Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in 2010 compared same-sex marriage to the ability to marry inanimate objects or dogs.

Taylor said above all, Barnes' presence in state government will give him an opportunity to advocate using his experience as a black man in Wisconsin — a rare perspective in the Capitol. She said without much of a job description, Barnes will be able to define his new office.

"That's huge," she said. "It matters for individuals to affiliate the lieutenant governor with a face of a person of color. It will be up to Mandela to make sure it is more than symbolic."