The Making of a Mayor

In his memoir, Paul Soglin, a figure in Madison politics for more than six decades, reflects on what he accomplished as mayor, the obstacles he faced, and the lessons he learned along the way. Soglin grew up on Chicago’s West Side with his politically active immigrant grandparents, subsequently moving to the city’s South Side with his parents. He arrived in Madison as a college student in 1962 and later, as a graduate student, became a face of the anti-war movement. Soglin details the police brutality at the October 1967 Dow Chemical Company protest and the 1969 Mifflin Street Block Party, as well as the aftermath of the 1970 bombing of the Army Math Research Center. His activism led him to city hall, where he proved to be an often polarizing figure, unafraid of making political enemies as he worked to make Madison a more egalitarian city.