Soon, the newlyweds moved to Madison to attend
the University of Wisconsin Law School.
>> The NAACP's belief in that period, late forties,
early fifties is that the legal route is the way to go.
We need more lawyers.
>> I was very excited.
It was just a wonderful place to be.
>> They were assigned to a University housing facility
recently created for returning G.I.s and their families,
a group of pre-fabricated trailers called Badger Village.
>> I was so looking forward to going to Badger Village.
It would be the first time we would be by ourselves.
>> We went out to look at what it would be like,
but people saw us.
>> One of their friends who's wife is at a party
and what he hears at the party is, "Did you hear?
The niggers are moving in."
So they put together a petition.
>> And they passed off this petition saying,
we don't want any blacks in Badger Village.
And you have no idea how that affected me.
That was quite a shattering experience and it spoiled it
for me.
>> Badger Village residents shared a central communal
bathroom.
>> So I said to my husband, "When you go to the bathroom,
do you go to the same toilet?"
Because I found them talking once, and one said to the other,
"She always uses that toilet, so don't go in there."
So I said, "Don't use the same one, just change it all around.
You know, don't go to the same one all the time."
That's when my husband said, "We gotta get out of here."
>> My father was a veteran from World War II.
It was a segregated military at the time.
He was a bit more street smart.
>> He's worried about the threat.
In many places petition goes to violence very quickly.
So whites will try to intimidate you or have a petition and that
escalates to something on your lawn, which escalates ultimately
to the potential of violence.
>> Dale found university housing closer to campus,
also in prefabricated trailers, but more welcoming
to African Americans.
And together, Dale and Vel Phillips became the first
African American couple to graduate from
the University of Wisconsin Law School.
>> I was the first black woman to graduate from the law school.
I just thought that was the biggest thing that could
happen to me.