Jim Walsh, a former City Pages music editor and award-winning columnist for the Pioneer Press, writes about music and local culture. He is the author of the oral history “The Replacements: All Over but the Shouting.”
The day came with added significance and relevance, set as it was to a backdrop of worldwide protests; calls for police reform; challenges to financial, governmental, and cultural institutions to promote equality and equity; and Gov. Tim Walz pushing to declare it a state holiday.
In 2018 Black founded the center, which works to combat economic and social racism, and whose clients and partners include Ramsey County, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and the Itasca Project. She wants to speed up the pace of change.
Michelle Gross has been a police accountability activist for 40 years, but she’s never seen the kind of intensity that exploded around the death of George Floyd.
Restaurant action was spotty, but a few diners and drinkers took advantage of the gorgeous summer weather to sit, socially distanced, on local patios.
The workweek started Monday with the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police outside of Cup Foods on 38th and Chicago and ended Friday with Lake Street in flames and an ongoing vigil outside Cup.
MinnPost toured and tooled around the Twin Cities, looking for signs of life during COVID-19.
The sidewalk outside Mount Olivet is filled with chalked messages of support. Across the street, the marquee of the F45 fitness club reads on one side, “Distance Is Temporary Community Is Forever,” and “Thank You MT Olivet Staff You Are Heroes” on the other.
“We’re trying to go out and say, ‘I see that you have a need, and I’m going to jump ahead and give you a solution to this need,’” said Emily Fulton-Foley, executive director.
An online map is tracking Little Free Libraries whose owners are stocking their kiosks with food, toys, puzzles, household items, and masks.
“I like that my toddlers see this,” said Sarah Springer. “It’s demonstrating to them how you can connect with your community, and how simple things can be points of connection.”
It’s a very financially volatile time, with Women’s Advocates adjusting to the new realities of living and working amid COVID-19 restrictions.
MinnPost photographed messages on shuttered storefronts and elsewhere across the city Saturday and Sunday, with many small business owners keeping a stiff upper lip for their bricks-and-mortar customers via store windows.
For funeral directors dealing with the day-to-day nuts and bolts business of life and death, the coronavirus and social distancing era has changed the way they help people grieve, and how funeral homes host celebrations of life.
“Music is critical at all points in time, but now it’s even more,” said Paul Babcock, president and CEO of MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis.
MinnPost took a tour of the marquees and storefronts of the ghost town that is the Twin Cities.
MinnPost talked to people on the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul on Monday — practicing social distancing of 6 feet apart all the while — about how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted their lives.
“We wanted to start a place that was accessible to everybody, regardless of age, income, physical ability, or skill level,” said co-founder Ellie Fregni. “We wanted to eliminate the barriers to participating in a music program.”
A group of about 100 poets, artists, and writers that make up Mehfil-ae-Minneapolis took to a stage in Chaska to “promote and advance the rich Indian and Pakistani traditions of kavi sammelans and mushairas (poems).
Kpop is known for its hyper-optimistic outlook, rigorous dance choreography and infectious beats. Its stars are hardly household names. But to a growing group of Kpop lovers in Minnesota, the music, videos and dances provide big fun and connection to community.
“’Exhilirating’ is definitely the word of the day,” said artist Kat Morgan, who spent her afternoon pedaling art lovers around on a tiny tour bus.
