In one of America’s most segregated cities, Eugene Kane was a black man who gave the local newspaper’s mostly white readers a lot to think about. He once told Milwaukee Magazine that he was not “the Martin Luther King of journalism” and was unafraid to piss people off. “I’m not doing this to make white people feel better,” he said in that 2008 interview. “Gene” to those who knew him, he wrote an award-winning column for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called Raising Kane. Readers loved and hated it—and read it. No one in the newsroom got the kind of hate-filled mail that Gene did, for just speaking his mind, for doing his work. 

Gene grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Milwaukee in the `80s, when the Milwaukee Journal was looking to hire more journalists of color. He was an essential voice, a fixture on local TV and radio talk shows and in countless civic discussions. He lectured at both UWM and Marquette University. 

Gene took a buyout from the paper in 2012 and sang “Moon River” to the newsroom before walking out the door. He continued to be active on Twitter and to write opinion pieces for various outlets, including the nonprofit Wisconsin Examiner, where he had been commenting on the 2020 presidential election. 

When we met Gene for a “This is Milwaukee” interview in May of 2019, he wasn’t especially sanguine about Milwaukee or the paper, though he had love for both. He’d had a health scare a few years back, ending up on life support after undiagnosed diabetes led to a stroke. It had shifted his perspective, he said. The old persistent battles our city faces were a source of exhaustion and disappointment. He was focused on other things. People he loved. Family on the East Coast. 

Eugene Kane was found dead on Thursday, April 16. The medical examiner will test for Covid-19. He was 63.