Vel Phillips: Dream Big Dreams from PBS Wisconsin Education tells the story of one remarkable woman and the struggles she undertook to build a better community. Use the film and this teaching guide to engage your students in Vel Phillips’s extraordinary story.

Your students will discover how Phillips, Milwaukee’s first African American and first female alderman, rose to prominence as one of Wisconsin’s great civil rights activists boasting a list of “firsts” as part of her legacy. These include the first African American judge in Wisconsin and the first woman in the nation to hold executive office in state government.