Health before aesthetics

Without attending to the comprehensive needs of neighbors along with infrastructure improvements, we fear that the current plan will lead to increased displacement of current residents and their lives will not be improved.”

Jeanelle Austin

It is a memorial. It is a place of resistance around the world. But first and foremost, it is a community,” she said. “And what we need to tell folk is that you may want, you may think, you may desire normalcy. But what was normal was Black folk dying in the middle of the street.”

Marcia Howard

Half of 24 Demands for Justice met

When in August 2020 city officials asked “What does justice look like”? community members went up and down the blocks at 38th and Chicago talking to neighbors and business owners. The result was a list of 24 Demands for Justice Resolution 001, which include police accountability measures, grants for businesses, integrative health and housing support, and youth job investments. At the Nov. 6 Town Hall, Rise & Remember’s Jeanelle Austin provided updates on each of the demands. Half are considered met and are as follows:

1. Recall Mike Freeman, Hennepin County Attorney – Freeman was publicly denounced and no longer holds office.

3. Provide accountability and transparency in multiple deaths at the hands of law enforcement – During negotiations, the community agreed this would be met by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.

4. Open an independent investigation into the conviction of Myon Burrell – Burrell’s sentence was commuted, and he was released from prison on Dec. 15, 2020.

9. Conduct the trial of the four former officers charged in the murder of George Floyd at a court in Minneapolis.

10. Invest $400,000 into George Floyd Square (GFS) through the neighborhood associations to create new jobs for young people – In November 2022, Commissioner Angela Conley led the charge of getting Hennepin County to fund this need. “The action of the Hennepin County Commissioners is a step in the right direction,” said Austin. “We are learning the depths of the need to continue to invest in our youth.”

11. Invest $300,000 into GFS to provide Undoing Racism training for the black community – In November 2021, Commissioner Angela Conley led the charge of getting Hennepin County to fund this need.

16. Allocate a facade grant to George Floyd Square to improve the aesthetics of the business corridor – Multiple grant opportunities for businesses in GFS have been offered since 2020.

17. Establish and distribute a contingency fund for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) businesses located in GFS – Same as #16.

18. Provide Agape Movement a space for their operations within GFS.

20. Release the death certificate of Dameon “Murphy Ranks” Chambers – This demand was met within 24 hours of the first meeting with Mayor Jacob Frey and the city council members of Wards 8 and 9.

22. Hold law enforcement accountable for impeding EMS response and the mishandling and delay of Murphy Ranks’ case – The community agreed this would be met by the DOJ investigation, though they would not know which specific cases were investigated.

23. Drop the charges against non-violent protesters from 2016-2017.

For some of the unmet demands, Austin called attention to where they coincide with the 38th St. THRIVE plan. Development of Dreamland on 38th and the expansion of Kente Circle are two examples. The vision of Dreamland is to create a supportive workspace for African American entrepreneurs to start and expand small businesses in the areas of food and heritage. Kente Circle focuses on providing culturally informed mental health services.

Begun in 2019 and approved by the city council in 2021, 38th St. THRIVE is a collective vision document for the 38th St. Cultural Corridor. It also includes housing support and devotes a section to George Floyd Square. It is available on the city web site.

The full document for the 24 demands is at Bit.ly/Georgefloydsquare-a

Audio

Health before aesthetics_Jill Boogren.mp3

Neighbors packed the house at Belfry Community Space (3901 Chicago Ave.) on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, for a Town Hall “In Defense of Black Lives.”
The meeting was held in response to the city of Minneapolis proposal, unveiled at its Oct. 29 open house, to reconstruct 38th and Chicago to allow all forms of traffic in all directions. If approved, construction would begin in 2025.
For many, the city’s proposal feels like window dressing that ignores the real needs of the community.
“It looked real pretty. It looked like it was gonna smell real nice. Like it ain’t got no roaches or nothin’,” said community member Mileesha Smith, drawing laughter from the crowd. “But then I was like, dang. If they did do that, we’re still gonna be sleeping on the streets.… We’re still gonna be releasin’ what’s inside of us on these streets. We’re still gonna be hopin’ and prayin’ that somebody is gonna attend to our needs.”
Smith said the problem is not the police or the community but the environment they’re living in, and that these kinds of upgrades cost money that could be used elsewhere – to house, clothe and feed people. “We don’t want it to be pretty. We didn’t take it to be pretty,” she said, referring to the protest that first closed the streets in 2020.
Jordan powell karis, the artist who created the fist sculptures at the center of 38th and Chicago and at each of the four gateways to George Floyd Square, said the sculptures weren’t meant to be pretty.
“They’re meant to hold space in the protest. We’ve been doing it for four and a half years at this point,” he said.
Powell karis, who lives in Uptown and has seen the loss of businesses there, urged consideration of the impact of construction on the neighborhood. “That’s a thriving economic zone, and the construction has destroyed it,” he said. “I’m not sure how this area’s gonna really do, we already struggle in this neighborhood to keep it going.”

Another approach
The community presented an alternate plan that would halt road reconstruction for one year for three purposes:
1) to enable the city, Hennepin County and the state of Minnesota to create an intergovernmental agency – similar to the approach to law enforcement that was taken during the trial of Derek Chauvin – to implement immediate solutions for housing and healing
2) to support a racial justice and healing center at 38th St. and 4th Ave. S., as outlined in the 38th Street THRIVE strategic plan approved by the city council in 2021
3 to use the existing Community Visioning Council to create a comprehensive, community-led vision for George Floyd Square (GFS) by October 2025 that includes a memorial, the Peoples’ Way and the right-of-way
“Without attending to the comprehensive needs of neighbors along with infrastructure improvements, we fear that the current plan will lead to increased displacement of current residents and their lives will not be improved,” read Rise & Remember’s Jeanelle Austin, who presented the alternate plan.
Neighbors were first welcomed to the town hall by the music of Brass Solidarity, Elder Atum Azzahir of the Cultural Wellness Center, and raj, the evening’s emcee. Then Austin presented updates on the 24 Demands of Justice Resolution 001, the 38th Street THRIVE plan, and an independent community survey on the future of GFS that was completed last winter.
According to Austin, the community considers half of the 24 Demands as met (see sidebar). For some of those that haven’t been met – especially those calling for integrative healthcare and affordable housing for the neighborhood – she brought attention to the overlap between the goals of the 24 Demands and 38th Street THRIVE.
“This comes as no surprise, as both documents emerged through engaging with Black community members who have been historically disenfranchised and marginalized,” said Austin. “This document is not focused merely on infrastructure. It also addresses the root causes of racism, and it acknowledges that it must be a moving document to build upon the work of justice and equity.”
38th Street THRIVE calls for building a “social experience” for the community, where there is affordable housing, access to culturally-rooted health and wellness resources, anti-racism training, and support for BIPOC businesses. Beyond buildings and streets, it calls for policy, culture and behavior changes and “a shift in imagination to transform our neighborhoods.”
“The 24 Demands underlines what is urgently needed for us to breathe,” said Austin. “The 38th St. THRIVE plan gives us permission to live a long life.”
Austin also shared a summary of findings from an independent community survey on GFS that was requested by the 38th and Chicago Co-Creation Team and was administered by the University of Minnesota Center for Urban & Regional Affairs (CURA). Conducted between November 2023 and January 2024, the survey had 5,896 responses – 289 gathered from door-to-door canvassing, the rest completed online. It appears results were heavily skewed by a Dec. 4, 2023, post from CrimeWatchMpls on social media, which shared a link to the survey with this message:
“This is a BS survey about what should be done with George Floyd Square at 38th and Chicago in Minneapolis, but fill it out anyway. We suggested a jail facility should go in place of the abandoned gas station. Get creative.”
According to CURA, 2,019 – a third of the total responses – were logged to the online survey on Dec. 4 and 5, and patterns emerged that were different from responses generated before and after those two dates. Fewer respondents indicated they had been to George Floyd Square (58% compared to 94% prior to Dec. 4 and 71% after Dec. 5). The attitudes of these respondents were different as well. Before Dec. 4, 46% of respondents said preserving the existing memorial is very important or extremely important, compared to 9% on Dec. 4-5.

Community testimonials
After Austin’s presentation, more community members shared experiences that supported a different approach.
Neighbor Casper Warren recalled being awakened when the city first removed the barriers in 2021 and when someone sped into the Square and “sprayed bullets everywhere.”
The barriers were there for protection, “so people could not pick up speed and create another Charlottesville situation,” said Warren, referring to the driver who plowed his car into counter-protesters at a White nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others. The driver, James Alex Fields Jr., was convicted of federal hate crimes, including murder, in 2019.
While traveling south on I-94 from the north side to attend the town hall, Kiru Adbebe was reminded of freeways cutting through Black neighborhoods displacing people in Minneapolis and in St. Paul’s Rondo area.
“We see construction projects used as tools of destruction for Black communities,” said Adbebe.
Julia Johnson spoke to the power of community at George Floyd Square (GFS) to provide resources, food, housing care and even safety. She described being robbed at gunpoint with her baby in the car. Rather than calling the police, she called her neighbor Marcia Howard, who found out who did it and was able to work toward accountability. Calvary Church neighbors brought Johnson pizza and comforted her son.
For Johnson, the GFS community is a blueprint she wants to see get copied all over the country and around the world.
“Last night, with the election, when people were scared out of their minds because they didn’t know if White supremacists were gonna come again to this intersection and start lighting things on fire and sprayin’ bullets and jump out of pickup trucks, jump Black people and get away with it,” she said. “When we were terrified, we had each other.”
Closing out the evening, Howard said a lot of people have ideas of the aesthetics of GFS and reminded them it is now a historic landmark.
“It is a memorial. It is a place of resistance around the world. But first and foremost, it is a community,” she said. “And what we need to tell folk is that you may want, you may think, you may desire normalcy. But what was normal was Black folk dying in the middle of the street.”
City leaders presented their proposal to the city council at its Committee of the Whole meeting on Nov. 12 (with many community members present), and again at the Climate & Infrastructure Committee on Nov. 21. Transportation planner Nathan Koster acknowledged that there is no consensus on the plan and said the community is deeply divided. That is true for Council Members Andrea Jenkins (Ward 8) and Jason Chavez (Ward 9), whose wards both include George Floyd Square, as well.
Jenkins, who was integral to developing the 38th St. THRIVE plan, supports the city’s plan. “It’s really important that we invest in this community to demonstrate that we do recognize the disinvestments that created the conditions that led to [George Floyd’s] murder,” she said.
Chavez does not support the city’s plan. “We’re talking about tearing up a street without talking about the investments that 38th St. THRIVE deserves and needs,” he said, stating that the plan wouldn’t improve people’s housing situation or economic challenges.
The proposal is expected to go to the full city council on Thursday, Dec. 5.