Insight ::: 06.08.2026

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Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 1

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June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026

Vol. 53 No. 23 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

Honoring a

MURDERER The MN GOP’s moment of silence for Derek Chauvin is not an aberration — it is a pattern Six years after the world watched George Floyd’s murder on video, Minnesota Republicans used their state convention to honor the man convicted of that crime. The Floyd family calls it “insane.” Attorney General Keith Ellison calls it an act of profound cruelty. And the pattern it reveals is older than this convention.

Editor

By Al McFarlane On the morning of Saturday, May 30, 2026, delegates to the Minnesota Republican Party's state endorsement convention rose and stood in silence. They were not honoring a fallen soldier. They were not remembering a victim of gun violence. They were not pausing for the more than one million Americans who have died of COVID-19.

They were observing a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin — the former Minneapolis police officer convicted by a unanimous jury of the second-degree murder of George Floyd.

The date was five days after the sixth anniversary of George Floyd's murder. The location was Duluth, Minnesota — the same state where Floyd took his last breaths on May 25, 2020, with Chauvin's knee on his neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds as he cried out for his mother and told his killers he could not breathe.

The facts of what happened at the convention are not in dispute. Delegate Christopher Rocco of St. Paul called for the tribute. Convention chair, State

Rep. Danny Nadeau (R-Rogers), put the motion to a voice vote before roughly 2,300 delegates. The ayes rang out clearly and loudly. A 10-second silence followed. Convention business then resumed.

The facts of what Derek Chauvin did are not in dispute either. A Minnesota jury of twelve citizens found him guilty. The Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld that verdict. The Minnesota Supreme Court declined to disturb it.

The United States Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal. A Hennepin County judge denied his most recent petition for postconviction relief in May 2026 — just weeks before his convention tribute. Every court that has examined the evidence

has reached the same conclusion: Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.

And yet, the Minnesota Republican Party held a moment of silence for him — and its chair defended the decision.

"I am heartbroken and frankly shocked by the Minnesota Republican Party's decision to hold a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin at their convention — days after the sixth anniversary of George Floyd's murder. George Floyd's children lost their father. His siblings lost their brother. His community lost a neighbor and friend. That loss is permanent and irreparable. The jury heard all the evidence. The appeals courts reviewed every claim.

Justice was rendered according to our system of law. To honor the man convicted of murdering George Floyd — days after the very anniversary of that terrible day — is an act of profound cruelty to the Floyd family and to every Minnesotan who believes in accountability under law."

— Attorney General Keith Ellison, May 31, 2026

The family responds

Attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, who represented the Floyd family in their civil rights case, were unequivocal in their condemnation. In a statement released Tuesday, June 2, they called the moment of silence an 'immoral act' and called for a retraction and apology.

'The audacity of the Minnesota Republican Party to honor an individual who has both been convicted by a jury of his peers for the murder of a fellow human being, while at the same time violated a professional oath to protect and serve his community, is disgusting,' they said. 'As the legal team who fought for civil justice for George Floyd and systemic legislative change to improve policing in his name, we are sickened by this lack of respect and urge all who planned and participated in this tribute to deeply reflect on the rule of law.'

George Floyd's children lost their father. That loss,

MURDERER

5

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Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 3

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Vol. 53 No. 23 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com

Carlo Petrini and the great remembering through food

Carlo Petrini with school kids

By Jim Embry Food Justice Advocate

Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Minneapolis City Archives

Heritage Park, built on the former Sumner-Glenwood public housing superblock in North Minneapolis, is now under court-appointed receivership. Its master developer, McCormack Baron Salazar, is no longer in operational control.

Heritage Park's crisis deepens

By Insight News Team

Receivership, city dollars, and a public land question

The Heritage Park development on the Near North Side of Minneapolis is caught between two institutional crises simultaneously, and residents deserve a clear accounting of both.

The four rental phases of Heritage Park — the HOPE VI replacement community built on the former Sumner Field, Olson, Lyndale, and Glenwood public housing footprint — remain under court-appointed receivership. The original master developer, McCormack Baron Salazar, is no longer in operational control. The City of Minneapolis has moved public dollars into the property to address what staff describe as

existing life-safety issues.

Those facts have been on the public record since our initial reporting. What is now coming into sharper focus is the second crisis — the one that has received less public attention.

The land question

The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority's draft 2026 Moving to Work Annual Plan, released in August 2025, contains a paragraph that warrants close reading. MPHA, the document states, is studying 'the long-term vision for the entire Heritage Park neighborhood including the Phase III and IV parcels located south of Olson Highway

and the 4.3-acre 555 Girard Terrace site.' Options, the agency writes, 'may include disposition and/or development.' The study continues into 2026.

Disposition, in housing-authority language, means selling.

At the same moment a private developer's failure has produced a court receivership over the four rental phases, the public agency that holds the underlying land is openly weighing whether to part with parcels included in the original master plan but never fully built out — and the separate Girard Terrace site.

At the same moment

a private developer's failure has produced a court receivership, the public agency holding the underlying land is openly studying whether to sell it. Near North residents deserve a full accounting.

The history that grounds this moment

Heritage Park was built on a promise. The Hollman v. Cisneros consent decree of 1992 committed federal, state, and city resources to replacing the concentrated-poverty public housing that had stood on this site with a mixed-income community.

HERITAGE

8

Rosewood: the Black town that was erased — and the descendants who refused to let it be forgotten In the first week of January 1923, a white mob in Levy County, Florida destroyed the town of Rosewood. The violence was triggered by a white woman's claim that she had been assaulted by a Black man — a claim that was almost certainly false, historians have since established. What followed over several days was a systematic act of racial terror: homes burned, residents killed, a thriving Black community erased from the map of Florida.

The death toll has

never been fully established.

Official records recorded at least six Black residents and two white residents killed. Descendants of Rosewood families have long maintained that dozens more died — their names unrecorded, their fates deliberately obscured.

Rosewood was not a poor community. It was a self-sufficient Black town with a church, a school, a Masonic lodge, and families who owned their land. That ownership, and the deliberate targeting of it, is

central to understanding what was at stake — and what was taken.

vors fled and, fearing retaliation, mostly stayed silent. Florida historians did not document the massacre. The state offered

For decades, the story of Rosewood was suppressed. Survi-

ROSEWOOD

Buried for nearly 70 years

9

Two weeks, too many: gun violence claims lives across the nation and close to home From Iowa to Texas to Minneapolis, a relentless pattern of shootings, family annihilation, and preventable death demands urgent reckoning The names change. The places change. The grief does not.

Over the past two weeks, gun violence has once again cut across the country — from an Iowa riverfront to Houston living rooms, from Amarillo apartment parties to a Dallas shopping center parking lot — leaving a trail of funerals, fractured families, and unanswered questions about when,

exactly, this nation will decide that enough is enough.

Iowa: A community shattered

In Muscatine, Iowa, on June 1, 2026, a 52-year-old man named Ryan Willis McFarland fatally shot six people — among them two students and two employees of the Muscatine Community School District — before taking his own life on a riverfront trail

as officers approached. Preliminary investigation points to a domestic dispute as the catalyst.

The Gun Violence Archive classifies it as the ninth mass murder of 2026 in the United States.

Six people. A school community. A riverfront that will never feel the same.

"Family murder-suicides occur, on average, once

every five days in this country.

That is not a statistic. That is a schedule of grief."

Texas: Five shootings in seven days

A Moms Demand Action report documented five devastating shootings across Texas in a sin-

VIOLENCE

Commentary

The struggle continues: what the recent Supreme Court ruling signifies for Black people

PAGE 4

8

On May 21, the world lost one of its great cultural visionaries.

Carlo Petrini, founder of the international Slow Food movement and architect of Terra Madre, died in Bra, Italy—the small Piedmont town where a global revolution in food culture quietly began. For millions around the world, Carlo was a movement leader, philosopher, and advocate for biodiversity, small farmers, Indigenous food traditions, and the dignity of local culture. For me, he was also a dear friend, mentor, and fellow traveler in the long journey toward a more just and sustainable future.

I first met Carlo in 2008 during my first journey to Torino, Italy, for Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, the biennial gathering that brings together farmers, seed keepers, cooks, scholars, Indigenous leaders, youth, and food activists from around the globe. I could not have imagined then that I would return eight times as a delegate, nor that our conversations would continue across nearly two decades.

Carlo and I were born

the same year—1949—and less than two months apart. We also emerged from similar political foundations as left-leaning youth activists while remaining deeply connected to our agrarian roots. During the 70s, as Carlo was writing culinary and political essays in leftist journals in Italy, I was helping found Good Foods Co-op Lexington KY in 1972. Across different continents and cultural contexts, we arrived at remarkably similar conclusions: that food is sacred; that biodiversity matters; that communities must reclaim local knowledge and regional food traditions.

Carlo and I shared a belief that food could serve as a catalyst for cultural renewal, ecological healing, and a necessary species-level transformation in how humanity relates to the Earth. This affirmed my own "Six Pathways to a Sustainable Future" framework, which emphasizes Earth-centered and woman-centered worldviews, Indigenous ecological wisdom, the agrarian philosophy of George Washington Carver, the essential role of youth and art, seed sovereignty and the Terra Madre network, and the neces-

PETRINI

8

Minneapolis names 30-year veteran Bill Peterson interim police chief as department enters new transition

Bill Peterson For the third time since George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020, the Minneapolis Police Department is changing leadership. Mayor Jacob Frey has appointed First Precinct Inspector Bill Peterson — a 30-year MPD veteran — as interim chief of police, following the abrupt resignation of Chief Brian O’Hara on May 26, 2026.

O’Hara resigned rather than face disciplinary action after investigators found he had “knowingly and intentionally” deleted a contact card from his city-issued cellphone during an internal probe into allegations that he had engaged in sexual relationships with city employees. The underlying sexual mis-

conduct allegations were not substantiated, but investigators concluded the interference itself constituted a serious breach of trust. Frey called it a breach he “cannot allow.” At the time of his departure, 17 additional complaints against O’Hara remained open and active.

O’Hara had overseen a period of measurable public safety progress: homicides dropped 33 percent from their 2021 pandemic-era peak, and shootings in north Minneapolis had reached an all-time low for the start of 2026. He was hired in 2022 specifically to guide the city through state and federal consent decrees following findings of excessive force and

PETERSON

7

Arts & Culture

Freedom, unity, and culture: your Twin Cities summer celebration guide

PAGE 10

Page 4 • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Insight News

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Commentary Kevin Hart's roast revealed the cost of laughing along Columnist

By Haley Taylor Schlitz, Esq. In Minnesota, breath is not an abstraction.

It is not a metaphor. It is not a line to be recycled by a comedian chasing shock value.

It is not material for a room full of celebrities to laugh through because the cameras are rolling and the checks have already cleared.

Here, the words “I can’t breathe” are not just words.

They are memory.

They are witness. They are warning. They are the sound of a man’s life being taken from him in public while the world watched. They are the words George Floyd spoke before his name became a movement, before his image became a mural, before his death became another chapter in America’s long argument over whether Black life is sacred or merely useful.

So when a comedian used George Floyd’s final suffering as a punchline during Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart, I did not hear edgy comedy.

I heard desecration.

And what made it worse was not only that Tony Hinchcliffe said it. What made it worse was that Kevin Hart sat there for it. With rare exception—Chelsea Handler called Hinchcliffe out publicly, both on stage and afterward—most people in that room allowed the machinery of the show to keep moving. The laughter, the applause, the performance of being unbothered all sent the same message: Black people are still expected to prove our sophistication by tolerating our own dehumanization.

That is what angered me.

Not because I do not understand comedy. Black people understand comedy better than most. We have laughed through terror. We have laughed in kitchens after funerals, in church basements, barbershops, beauty salons and family re-

unions because laughter has often been one of the few things America could not take from us.

Our comedy has always carried truth. It has always known how to confront pain without surrendering dignity.

But this was not that.

This was not comedy speaking truth to power. This was power laughing at pain.

George Floyd was not in that room. His family did not consent to his final moments being used as entertainment. The community that carries the trauma of his murder was not asked whether it was ready to hear those words twisted into a joke.

Once again, Black suffering was treated as public property.

That is not courage.

That is not transgression. That is not art. That is what happens when a culture confuses cruelty with bravery.

And Kevin Hart should have known better.

He was not a powerless bystander. The roast carried his name. The stage existed because of his success. The room was built around him. He had the power to stop the moment, to reject the premise, to say clearly, not this. Not George Floyd. Not his final breath. Not here.

He did not.

Instead, the show went on.

That is the part many of us will remember, because there are moments when laughter becomes more than laughter. It becomes permission. It becomes surrender. It becomes a signal that the harm is acceptable, the wound is not sacred, and the people most connected to the pain are willing to let it pass.

For Black Gen Z, that signal was unmistakable.

We saw it. We understood it. And we are not confused.

This was not just about one ugly joke. It was about a larger cultural arrangement that Black America is being asked to accept. Our pain can be streamed. Our trauma can be monetized. Our history can be rewritten. Our voting rights can be weakened. Our dead can be mocked. And when we object, we are told we are too sensitive, too emotional, too unwilling to “understand the as-

signment.”

But what exactly was the assignment?

To laugh while a Black man’s final words are mocked? To sit quietly while a white MAGA comedian reaches into the deepest wound of a Black community and pulls out a punchline? To protect a celebrity’s brand at the expense of a family’s grief?

If that was the assignment, then it deserves to be failed.

There is something especially painful about watching Black people with power participate in their own community’s humiliation. Not because Black celebrities must carry every burden of the race.

Not because every Black person in entertainment is responsible for solving racism. But because there are moments when silence becomes a choice, and laughter becomes a betrayal.

Kevin Hart has built a career on being relatable, resilient and proudly Black. But visibility is not the same as responsibility. Wealth is not the same as wisdom. Power is not the same as protection.

In that moment, Hart did not protect George Floyd’s humanity.

He protected the show.

That distinction matters.

It matters because this was not the first time George Floyd’s death had been used as joke material by the same comedian. It matters because Floyd’s family has had to publicly condemn the use of his name and suffering as entertainment. It matters because Twin Cities leaders and advocates have had to gather again, years after Floyd’s murder, to remind the world that he was a father, a brother, an uncle, a human being and a member of this community.

How many times must Black people explain that our dead are not props?

How many times must a grieving family defend the humanity of someone the world watched die?

How many times must Minnesota be forced to hear “I can’t breathe” again, not as a cry for help, but as a setup for laughter?

This is what people

misunderstand about outrage.

Outrage is not always a loss of control. Sometimes outrage is moral clarity. Sometimes outrage is the only honest response to a culture that keeps demanding calm from the people it wounds.

There should be outrage.

There should be accountability.

There should be consequences.

Netflix made choices.

Producers made choices. Writers made choices. Performers made choices. Editors made choices. The entertainment industry knows how to draw lines when it wants to. It knows how to cut material. It knows how to protect powerful people. It knows how to decide that something is too risky, too sensitive or too costly to include.

So the question is not whether lines exist.

The question is whose humanity is placed behind them.

If jokes about certain powerful people can be removed, softened or avoided, then George Floyd’s final suffering could have been protected too. It was not. That tells us something about the hierarchy of sensitivity in America. Some people are shielded from insult.

Black grief is handed to the crowd.

That hierarchy does not exist only in entertainment.

It exists in politics. It exists in law. It exists in classrooms. It exists wherever Black dignity is treated as negotiable.

We are living in a moment when Black history is under attack, diversity is being framed as a threat, civil rights language is being twisted into grievance, voting protections are being weakened, and the long struggle for Black political power is being treated as an inconvenience.

A Netflix roast and a Supreme Court decision are not the same thing. But they can come from the same national mood.

One tells us Black pain can be laughed at.

The other tells us Black power can be limited.

Together, they reveal a country increasingly comfortable asking Black people to accept less dignity in public life.

That is what my gen-

eration is watching.

We watched George Floyd die on video. We watched the uprisings. We watched the murals. We watched corporations post black squares. We watched elected officials speak solemnly about justice. We watched institutions promise change.

Then we watched the backlash arrive.

We watched leaders run away from the language they once embraced. We watched books about Black history challenged. We watched diversity efforts dismantled. We watched voting rights attacked.

We watched America grow impatient with the memory of the injustice it claimed had awakened its conscience.

Now we are watching George Floyd become roast material.

And we are supposed to believe these things are disconnected?

They are not.

They are part of the same national exhaustion with Black humanity. America wants to move on from the grief without repairing the harm. It wants the symbolism of justice without the discipline of change. It wants the entertainment value of Blackness without the obligation to respect Black life.

It wants Black culture.

It wants Black talent.

It wants Black laughter.

It wants Black pain too, as long as that pain can be turned into content.

But it does not want Black accountability.

It does not want Black memory.

It does not want Black

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CEO/Editor-In-Chief Al McFarlane

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drew a congressional map with only one majority-Black district out of six.

Civil rights organizations and voters filed lawsuits, arguing that the map diluted Black voting power in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 2 prohibits voting laws and district maps that produce discriminatory effects, even without evidence of intentional bias—a standard commonly referred to as the “results test.”

A federal district court concurred with the challengers and ordered Louisiana to draw a map with two majority-Black districts. Louisiana subsequently redrew its map to include a second majority-Black district to comply. However, that new map was challenged by a different group of plaintiffs (including voters like Philip Callais),

who contended that the state had utilized race excessively, raising Equal Protection Clause concerns.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the 6–3 majority, asserted that Louisiana’s reliance on race in the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district was excessive. He contended that the Constitution generally prohibits the government from segregating individuals based on race during redistricting, and that the Voting Rights Act did not mandate the state to establish a second majority-Black district.

Consequently, the Court concluded that the map constituted an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

In practical terms, the Court indicated that states are prohibited from employing race as a primary factor in the

creation of minority districts unless it is genuinely necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. This ruling significantly hinders the utilization of race-conscious redistricting strategies to enhance minority representation.

Justice Alito argued for a more narrow interpretation of Section 2 by highlighting that Black voter turnout surpassed white voter turnout in two of the last five presidential elections, both nationally and in Louisiana. He specifically mentioned the high turnout in the 2008 and 2012 elections, during which President Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, was elected. Justice Alito cited these shifts as evidence that the conditions that

STRUGGLE 11

That is why this moment matters beyond comedy.

It is a reminder that representation without responsibility can become another form of extraction. A Black celebrity can sit at the center of the stage while Black people in the community are left to clean up the harm. A platform can profit from controversy while a grieving family is forced to relive its loss. An audience can laugh and log off while Minnesota is left holding the wound.

For Black Minnesotans, for Insight News readers, and for anyone who understands what George Floyd’s murder meant to this state and to the world, this was not just a bad joke.

It was an insult placed on top of an injury.

It was a reminder that even after all the marches, all the speeches, all the documentaries, all the statements and all the promises, Black people are still expected to defend the basic idea that our suffering should not be entertainment.

I reject that expectation.

George Floyd was not a joke.

His final words were not a punchline.

His family’s grief is not a playground.

Minnesota’s trauma is not Netflix content.

And Black people with power do not get to laugh along while the rest of us are asked to be quiet, sophisticated and forgiving.

There are some things a community should never have to explain twice.

This is one of them.

INSIGHT NEWS

The struggle continues: what the recent Supreme Court ruling signifies for Black people Efforts to curtail Black political representation persist through legislation, policy, and institutional frameworks. Although formal equality exists on paper, it does not necessarily guarantee equal access to power, resources, or protection in practice.

Progress in civil rights remains precarious, particularly when courts or lawmakers restrict the mechanisms for addressing discrimination. Genuine democracy necessitates more than nominal inclusion—it demands meaningful participation, equitable representation, and accountability. As Black individuals, we have only been recognized as citizens in America since 1965. We have been striving for our freedom since 1619.

The Supreme Court’s April 29, 2026, ruling in Louisiana v. Callais underscores that the struggle for Black liberation and a truly egalitarian democracy in America is far from concluded.

In a 6–3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that Louisiana’s 2024 congressional map (SB8), which included two majority-Black districts, was unconstitutional.

Louisiana’s population comprises 1/3 Black individuals, and Black people hold two of the six seats in Congress.

Following the census, Louisiana

power.

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Murderer From Cover as Attorney General Ellison observed, is 'permanent and irreparable.' The convention action reopened that wound deliberately — not incidentally — by timing a tribute to Chauvin five days after Floyd's murder anniversary, in front of more than two thousand delegates to the convention of a political party which aspires to govern all Minnesotans.

What party leadership said — and what it reveals

The Republican Party of Minnesota subsequently issued a clarifying statement attempting to distance official leadership from the floor action. The party described it as 'a spontaneous motion brought forward from the convention floor,' and stated that 'a moment of silent prayer should not be mischaracterized as an official policy position.'

But the chair's own words told a different story.

Minnesota GOP Chair Alex Plechash, in an interview with WCCO Radio, defended the tribute directly: 'There are a lot of people that believe Derek Chauvin was improperly convicted and not treated well.

Those people wanted to have a moment of silence in recognition because they felt that way.'

Plechash did not condemn the action. He explained and validated it. That is not distance. That is endorsement.

Gubernatorial candidate Kendall Qualls — who received the convention's endorsement for governor, making him potentially the first Black major-party gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota history — deflected when asked whether he would have approved the tribute. 'I don't know. That was probably not the venue to do that, or the timing to do that,' Qualls said on WCCO. He added: 'I do have my own concerns

Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 5 about the trial itself and the condition of Derek Chauvin, how he was treated.' He also stated that Chauvin should receive a retrial and a federal pardon.

House Speaker Lisa Demuth said she was not in the room when the vote was taken and would prefer honoring fallen law enforcement officers — but declined to say whether she would support a state pardon for Chauvin if elected governor.

Congressman Tom Emmer's response was the most revealing of all. Rather than condemning the tribute, Emmer issued a statement defending it: he called it 'a sad day in the State of Minnesota' that coverage of the tribute was considered news, and described the delegates as 'hundreds of patriotic Minnesotans' who 'peacefully and respectfully recognized a member of law enforcement.'

A member of law enforcement. Not a convicted murderer. Not a man whose conviction has been upheld by every court that has examined it. In Emmer's framing, Chauvin is simply a police officer being honored. George Floyd is absent from the sentence entirely.

"This decision dishonors the memory of George Floyd and wounds his loved ones all over again. As the lead prosecutor whose team presented this case to a jury of twelve Minnesotans and then prevailed at every step of the appeals process, I am deeply troubled by what this says about the state of our politics. Minnesota's families — all of them — deserve better."

— Attorney General Keith Ellison, full statement, May 31, 2026

Not an aberration: a coordinated national campaign to rehabilitate Chauvin

It would be convenient — and wrong — to treat the convention tribute as an isolated act of bad judgment by one rogue delegate.

The record shows otherwise.

What happened in Duluth on May 30 did not emerge in a vac-

uum. It is the visible expression of a coordinated, well-funded, and nationally organized campaign to rehabilitate Derek Chauvin and, in doing so, to roll back the legitimacy of the Black Lives Matter movement and any accountability for police violence against Black people.

The campaign has had prominent architects. In March 2025, Ben Shapiro — founder of the Daily Wire — launched a public petition calling on President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin for his federal civil rights conviction. Shapiro's open letter argued that Chauvin's conviction 'represents the defining achievement of the Woke movement in American politics.' Elon Musk amplified the petition on X with a terse response: 'Something to think about.' Trump initially said he was not aware of the pardon push. No federal pardon has been issued. But the conversation has never stopped.

The intellectual infrastructure for the rehabilitation campaign was provided by a 2023 documentary titled 'The Fall of Minneapolis,' produced

by Alpha News, a Minnesota-based right-wing media outlet. The film rehashes arguments that Chauvin's attorneys already made and lost — at trial, on appeal, and at the Supreme Court.

Independent journalists and legal analysts have described the film as factually unreliable, built on debunked claims, and designed to undermine public confidence in a verdict rendered by twelve Minnesota citizens who heard the full evidence.

The Star Tribune's fact-checking analysis found that many of the documentary's central claims were false or lacked critical context. The medical examiner who ruled Floyd's death a homicide stood by that ruling under cross-examination at trial, and every court that reviewed the medical evidence upheld the finding. The claim — circulated by right-wing media — that Floyd died of a drug overdose rather

than Chauvin's knee was rejected by the jury and by every appellate court.

Chauvin's most recent petition for postconviction relief, filed in late 2024, relied in part on arguments drawn from 'The Fall of Minneapolis' and on a separate pathologist's theory that Floyd died of an unrelated medical condition. A Hennepin County judge denied that petition in May 2026. The appellate record is complete. The conviction stands.

The pattern: erasure of Black victims, protection of white perpetrators

The Duluth convention tribute fits within a broader and older pattern — one that Insight News has documented across decades of community journalism and that the civil rights movement has fought since Reconstruction.

The pattern works as follows: A Black person is killed, often by police or by a white vigilante. The killing is documented — on video, in medical records, by eyewitnesses. A jury convicts the perpetrator. And then the rehabilitation campaign begins. The victim's character is attacked. The verdict is reframed as politically motivated. The perpetrator is recast as a martyr. Each step in this process has the effect — by design — of delegitimizing Black testimony, Black experience, and Black grief.

This is not speculation. It is the documented record. Lt. Bob Kroll, then head of the Minneapolis Police Federation, sent a letter to rank-andfile officers after Floyd's killing lamenting that media would not report on Floyd's 'violent criminal history.' Candace Owens published a viral video attacking Floyd's character within days of his death. Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, and others spent years arguing that the jury was coerced. The documentary 'The Fall of Minneapolis' gave these claims a veneer of investigative credibility.

The rehabilitation of Chauvin is not really about Chauvin. It is about the message. As journalist and analyst Radley Balko has observed, 'if you can convince white people that it was all based on a lie, they can go back to dismissing Black people's allegations of police abuse. If you can persuade a large enough portion of the population that none of it happened the way we all saw it happen — if you can get them to reject the evidence of their own eyes and ears — you not only chip away at their support for reform, you make them reluctant to sympathize with the protests yet to come.'

That is the purpose of the convention tribute. That is what the moment of silence was for.

"The audacity of the Minnesota Republican Party to honor an individual who has both been convicted by a jury of his peers for the murder of a fellow human being, while at the same time violated a professional oath to protect and serve his community, is disgusting. We urge all who planned and participated in this tribute to deeply reflect on the rule of law."

— Attorneys Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, for the Floyd family, June 2, 2026

The rule of law as the floor — not a political option

Attorney General Keith Ellison has framed this precisely and correctly. The jury heard all the evidence. The appeals courts reviewed every claim.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene. Twelve Minnesota citizens — the institution at the heart of American justice — rendered their verdict. That verdict has been sustained at every level of the legal system.

To hold a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin is to tell the Floyd family — and every Black family in Minnesota — that their grief, their loss, and the justice rendered on their behalf are negotiable. It is to

say that the rule of law applies selectively. That a unanimous jury's verdict can be repudiated by a voice vote of Republican convention delegates if the victim is Black and the perpetrator is a white police officer.

State Rep. Jamie Long (D-Minneapolis), former House Majority Leader, put it directly: the Minnesota GOP prioritized a tribute to a convicted murderer over victims of gun violence, fallen service members, or anyone else whose death might have merited a moment of collective mourning.

That was the choice. It was deliberate. And it was made in front of more than two thousand people who voted aye.

Community leaders and activists gathered Monday night at the Hennepin County Government Center to rally against a potential federal pardon for Chauvin by President Trump. The possibility remains live. Any federal pardon would apply only to Chauvin's federal civil rights conviction — it would not affect the state murder conviction or his sentence.

But the symbolic damage of such an action would be severe: it would constitute an official federal statement that what happened to George Floyd on May 25, 2020 was acceptable.

That is the battle this moment requires us to name clearly. It is not a debate about process or parliamentary procedure. It is not a dispute about whether a delegate motion was properly handled. It is a contest over whether Black lives matter — not as a slogan, but as a legal and moral fact.

The Floyd family has not been given the luxury of treating this as an abstraction.

Neither should the rest of us.

Minnesota's families — all of them — deserve better.

And the rule of law, as Attorney General Ellison reminded this state, is not a political option. It is the floor beneath all of us — and it belongs to everyone.

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United Black Legislative Agenda Minnesota Organizing Coalition

The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts

Page 6 • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Insight News

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2 0 2 6 M I N N E S O TA L E G I S L AT I V E S E S S I O N

Two Minnesotas.

One Demand.

Every time a "best places to live" ranking is published, Minnesota and the Twin Cities rank at or near the top. And every time those lists are parsed by race, we fall all the way to the bottom. This is the urgency of now.

30.1%

BLACK HOMEOWNERSHIP TWIN CITIES (2ND LOWEST, 50 METROS)

3.9×

MORE LIKELY FOR BLACK MINNESOTANS TO LIVE BELOW POVERTY LINE

2nd

WORST STATE IN U.S. FOR BLACK AMERICANS (2024)

50th

BLACK ON-TIME GRADUATION RATE, NATION

THREE STEPS — THE URGENCY OF NOW

1 2 3

That Governor Tim Walz meet with representatives of Minnesota's Black communities to affirm the state's commitment to prioritize disparities elimination across all aspects of Minnesota governance and administration.

That the Governor hold his appointed State Commissioners and the departments they lead accountable for measurable and reportable strategies to eliminate disparities embedded in state policy and procedure.

That the Minnesota Legislature prioritize intentional solution-making by engaging Minnesota's Black community at the table of decision — in committee rooms, not just at press conferences.

U N I T E D B L A C K L E G I S L AT I V E A G E N D A — 7 - P O I N T P L A N PRIORITY 1 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 2 Invest Now!

The median Black household's wealth ($9,000) is one-fifteenth that of white households ($134,520). Structural barriers in lending, housing, and employment cripple Black

Black Minnesotans face unemployment rates nearly triple their white counterparts.

Criminal justice contact removes Black applicants before they enter the queue. Break

business formation. We demand capital access, not just conversation.

institutional barriers. Create pathways to well-paying careers.

PRIORITY 3 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 4 Invest Now!

Safety encompasses physical, economic, and emotional well-being. Playgrounds, streets, and malls remain unsafe in North Minneapolis and East St. Paul. Real public safety

Twin Cities Black homeownership stands at 30.1% — among the lowest in the nation.

The gap is the fourth-largest in the country per the Federal Reserve Bank of

requires community investment — not just policing.

Minneapolis. Investor acquisition of single-family homes is accelerating the crisis.

PRIORITY 5 Invest Now!

PRIORITY 6 Invest Now!

Black student reading and math scores are 20+ points below state average. Minnesota

Heart disease, stroke, homicide, substance abuse, cancer, and infant mortality strike the

ranks 50th for Black on-time graduation. Only 25% of Black students are college-ready.

Our children deserve more than remediation as a starting point.

Black community at disproportionate rates. The Legislature must act with urgency proportional to the crisis.

Business & Economic Development

Employment

Public Safety

Housing

Education

Health & Wellness

PRIORITY 7 Demand Now!

Policy — Coherence of Interest and Capacity Conflicting interests and diffuse capacity have produced policies that systematically disenfranchise the Black community. We demand policy coherence — legislation that reflects the documented needs, expressed will, and political power of Black Minnesota. Every legislator, regardless of party, bears this responsibility.

T H E T W O M I N N E S O TA S — B Y T H E N U M B E R S Minnesota ranks 2nd worst in the nation for Black Americans to live — a recognition that,

T W I N C I T I E S R A C I A L D I S PA R I T I E S

alongside the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, placed this state at the center of the national racial reckoning.

Homeownership rate

30.1%

76%+ White

The racial wealth gap is structural. It is the accumulated result of intersecting policies — in

Poverty rate

28.6%

7.3%

lending, housing, employment, and education — that built intergenerational wealth for white

Median household income

Black

Black

$36,127 Black

White

$82,118 White

9.2%

Unemployment rate

3.2%

Black

62%+

Liquid-asset poverty

Black HH

White

31.7%

White HH

families while systematically denying it to Black families. The losses from unpaid wages and denied inheritances are estimated at $20 trillion.

In the Twin Cities, the homeownership gap is among the nation's widest — and it has grown over two decades, accelerated by investor acquisition of hundreds of single-family homes now operated as rentals.

Minnesota's record budget surpluses of recent years offered a historic opportunity to address these disparities in a meaningful way. That opportunity cannot be squandered. The United Black Legislative Agenda — convened by faith leaders, organized by the Minnesota

"There are two Minnesotas — one white, one Black — separate and unequal."

Organizing Coalition — brings the voice of community to the table of decision.

The session ends. Our demand does not.

— NAACP Twin Cities, 2019 Economic Inclusion Plan

C O N V E N E D B Y FA I T H — E N D O R S E D B Y C O M M U N I T Y Bishop Richard Howell, Jr. · Bishop David Jones · Bishop Horace Smith · Bishop Reuben Armstrong · Pastor Harvey Russell · Rev. Carl Crawford (outstate organizing) — and the Minnesota Organizing Coalition, representing communities statewide.

U B L A L E G I S L AT I V E C H A M P I O N S — 2 0 2 6 S E S S I O N Sen. Sandra Pappas

Rep. Samantha Vang

Sen. Erin Maye Quade

Senate District 67

House District 67A

Senate District 57

Sen. Omar Fateh

Rep. Hodan Hassan

Rep. Esther Agbaje

Senate District 62

House District 62B

House District 59B

The session ends.

Our demand does not.

U N I T E D B L A C K L E G I S L AT I V E A G E N D A M I N N E S O TA O R G A N I Z I N G C O A L I T I O N INSIGHTNEWS.COM

Published as a pro-bono public awareness message by Insight News — Black-owned Twin Cities community newspaper, founded in 1974 as Insight Magazine, continuously publishing as Insight News, The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts, since 1976.

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Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 7

At The Legislature They came quiet. They left 'lit.'

By Insight News Staff They arrived at the Minnesota State Capitol unsure of what to expect. They left transformed.

One hundred and six young people — ages 13 to 24 — gathered at the Capitol on Friday, April 24, 2026, for the African Heritage Day on the Hill Youth Summit, presented by the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage (CMAH).

By afternoon, the building that houses the laws governing their lives had become something more personal: a space they could see themselves in.

Denise Butler, Associate Director at ACER, brought five young people to the sum-

106 young people ignite African Heritage Day on the Hill Youth Summit at the Minnesota State Capitol mit. She watched them move from silence to self-possession over the course of the day.

"They were, in their words, 'lit.'"

That single word — offered by the young people themselves after an afternoon of engaging with lawmakers, asking questions, and moving through the Capitol's storied halls — captured what no program description could.

The morning session was designed, in the CMAH's own framing, as a space for youth to "connect, reflect, and engage in meaningful dialogue

around identity, unity, and leadership." Golden Valley Mayor Roslyn Harmon delivered the keynote address, speaking directly to the rising generation of leaders in the room.

The day's emotional and intellectual peak came through a youth-led panel discussion featuring speakers representing both African immigrant and African American communities. Panelists explored questions of identity with candor and sophistication, and pressed the theme that has animated CMAH's work since its founding: unity across com-

munities is not an aspiration — it is a necessity.

The day concluded with Youth Summit attendees joining the main afternoon program in the Capitol Rotunda — and getting the selfie of a lifetime with U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar.

Linda Sloan, Executive Director of CMAH, reflected on a vision offered by Senior Pastor Dr. B Charvez Russell of Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. "One of those kids attending," Russell said, "might be the next Senator Champion or Rep Ilhan Omar."

Denise Butler, Associate Director at ACER

Roslyn Harmon, Golden Valley Mayor

The organizations that made strong youth participation possible include The Links Minneapolis/St. Paul (MN) Chapter, The Links Greater Twin Cities (MN) Chapter, ACER, Restoration for All, DIRA Program, Youth and Family Circle (YFCMN), Minnesota African Youth Initiative, Mankato State University, Rochester Public

Schools, Ujamaa Place, the Senegalese Community in Minnesota, the Sierra Leone Community in Minnesota, and NAACP St. Paul.

The 106 young people who filled the Capitol that Friday did not come as spectators. They came as the future — and they left knowing it.

Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan

Mayor Kaohly Her

line of its work — is not rhetoric. It is a program. African Heritage Day on the Hill is, in the CMAH's own description, a visible expression of its core function: bringing lived community priorities "face-to-face" with the lawmakers who hold power over them.

The event closed with

remarks from a range of community organizations, each reflecting an aspect of the broad coalition that makes this gathering possible year after year.

The message with which participants were sent home was simple and declarative: "United we walk forward in power."

United we walk forward in power There is a particular power in gathering at the seat of government to say: we are here, we are watching, and our priorities are not negotiable.

That power was on full display on Friday, April 24, 2026, as the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage (CMAH) convened its annual African Heritage Day on the Hill in the Capitol Rotunda.

Community members, constituents, elected officials, youth leaders, and advocates from across Minnesota came together in the final stretch of the legislative session — a deliberate timing that placed community voice directly in the path of pending decisions.

African Heritage Day on the Hill returns to the Capitol Rotunda with a call for equity, representation, and reparative justice The afternoon program was facilitated by Senior Pastor Dr. B Charvez Russell from Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church. CMAH Chair Wayne Doe set the tone, recognizing lawmakers and community leaders as "key partners in advancing equity and opportunity."

Remarks followed from Senate President Bobby Joe Champion — himself a living symbol of the political power this convening aspires to build — as well as Saint Paul

Mayor Kaohly Her and Corey Boyd, Chief Equity Officer in the Office of Governor Tim Walz and Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan. Each voice added to a chorus that, as CMAH described it, consistently emphasized "collaboration, representation, and community-informed policymaking."

Youth representatives from the Boys and Girls Club and the Senegalese Youth Group also took the stage — a visible reminder that this convening is as much about the

next generation as it is about the present one.

The keynote address was delivered by U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar, whose presence connected the day's local urgency to the national landscape.

"Building bridges across communities, uplifting youth leadership, and advancing policies that reflect the needs and aspirations of Minnesotans of African heritage."

That framing — offered by CMAH as the through-

Unfinished business: CMAH's four-bill reparative justice agenda takes center stage Housing gaps, prison labor, and the Minnesota Great Migration Act headline the 2026 legislative push as Black homeownership trails statewide rates by more than 40 points When the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage says the word "reparative," it means something specific — and it is backed by numbers that make the case on their own.

Less than 30 percent of Black Minnesotans own their homes. Statewide, more than 70 percent of Minnesota households do. Black Minnesotans face a housing cost burden — the share of income consumed by housing — at twice the statewide rate: 60 percent compared to 30 percent.

These are not abstractions. They are the backdrop

against which the African Heritage Day on the Hill's legislative panels took place on April 24, 2026, at the Minnesota State Capitol.

The two panels were moderated by Retired Judge Tanya Bransford and CMAH Councilmember Victor Obisakin. Lawmakers engaged community members directly on priorities spanning economic justice, education equity, healthcare access, public safety, and immigrant protections.

The panels were anchored in CMAH's publicly named 2026 legislative agenda:

a four-bill roadmap for reparative justice addressing what the organization describes as intersecting crises of affordability, democracy, and immigration.

"The unfinished work of the 2025 session cannot be allowed to remain unfinished."

The four pillars of the agenda are: The Minnesota Great Migration Act — A legislative push to address historical inequities through a reparative justice framework, recognizing the structural origins of present-day disparities.

The MinneKIDS

Peterson

Thao, Thomas Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng.

In the state trial, Blackwell was shown a photograph of Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck. Her response became one of the most cited lines in the proceedings: “I don’t know what kind of improvised position this is. So that’s not what we train.” She went on to testify that all three federal defendants acted inconsistently with MPD policy on the duty to intervene and the obligation to render medical aid.

Her testimony was later challenged in the Alpha News documentary “The Fall of Minneapolis” and journalist Liz Collin’s book, both of which alleged she misrepresented departmental training.

Blackwell filed a defamation lawsuit against the creators. A court dismissed the case and found portions of her testimony “incomplete or misleading by omission,” and Blackwell ultimately agreed to pay $75,000 in attorneys’ fees following dismissal.

During her week as acting chief, Blackwell worked closely with Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty to address urgent gaps in domestic violence response, particularly in “Gone-on-Arrival” (GOA) cases — situations where suspects leave a scene before officers arrive. That collaboration

was immediately acknowledged

by Moriarty when Peterson’s appointment was announced.

“I was in consistent communication with Acting Chief Blackwell over the last week and we agreed that changes needed to be made immediately to improve domestic violence responses, especially with Gone-on-Arrival cases.”

— Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty

From 3 racially discriminatory policing.

But oversight agencies monitoring the consent decree process later concluded he had become an obstacle to reform rather than a driver of it.

“When I was asked to step into this role, I felt compelled to answer the call. My focus will be on maintaining stability, supporting officers, building on the progress we’ve made, strengthening trust with our community, and ensuring every resident feels safe in the city we are proud to serve.”

— Interim Chief Bill Peterson

ACTING CHIEF BLACKWELL: A CHAUVIN TRIAL WITNESS STEPS FORWARD

Peterson takes over from Assistant Chief Katie Blackwell, who served as acting chief for approximately one week following O’Hara’s departure.

Blackwell’s name is inseparable from the history of accountability in the MPD. As commander of the department’s training division at the time of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, Blackwell was called by prosecutors as an expert witness in both the 2021 state murder trial of Derek Chauvin and the 2022 federal civil rights trial of officers Tou

WHO IS BILL PETERSON?

Affectionately known as “BillyJack” by colleagues and community members alike, Peterson has spent his entire career at MPD. He has served in special operations, violent crimes investigations, robbery investigations, and Fourth Precinct patrol. Since 2019, he has led the First Precinct, which covers Downtown Minneapolis, the North Loop, and the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.

Peterson has been at the center of major Minneapolis crises across his three decades. He helped lead the department’s response to the northside tornado, coordinated operations during the I-35W bridge collapse, and directed First Precinct operations during the 2020 civil unrest following Floyd’s murder. He is also recognized within the department as a key architect of MPD’s Crisis Intervention Training (CIT)

Act — Legislation to establish statewide Children's Savings Accounts, building long-term educational assets for African Heritage students.

The Housing Stability Package — Explicitly framed as "unfinished work" from the 2025 legislative session, this package advocates for Just

Cause Eviction protections and emergency rental assistance — two tools designed to interrupt the cycle of displacement that has hollowed out Black communities across the metro.

The Justice Reform Package — Measures to end forced prison labor and ensure full implementation of the Min-

program.

trust with our residents.”

But the council’s progressive bloc used O’Hara’s departure — and the transition to Peterson — as an occasion to intensify scrutiny of mayoral oversight. Council Member Robin Wonsley, the 2nd Ward representative and Minority Leader who is a Democratic Socialist of America member, offered a pointed assessment: “The resignation is a symptom of a much larger problem, which is simply that Mayor Frey continues to be unable to effectively manage the Minneapolis Police Department.” Wonsley was joined by Council President Elliott Payne and Council Member Jason Chavez at a City Hall press conference the day after O’Hara’s resignation.

Frey pushed back, saying he does not act “on rumors and anonymous complaints” and that he moved promptly once he received the investigative report documenting the interference.

Peterson has explicitly stated that he will not seek the permanent position, describing his role as transitional. He is expected to serve approximately six months while a national search for a permanent chief is conducted. Senior MPD leadership, meeting with Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette the morning after O’Hara’s resignation, reportedly expressed a strong preference for an internal candidate to lead the department permanently.

REACTIONS FROM ELECTED OFFICIALS

Mayor Jacob Frey framed Peterson’s appointment in terms of earned trust: “Bill Peterson is the right leader for this moment.

He’s spent three decades serving Minneapolis, he’s earned the respect of officers across the department, and he understands that trust with the people of Minneapolis is paramount. Bill understands that trust is earned, and he has established a reputation of working every day to earn it.”

Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette voiced confidence in Peterson’s community roots: “I’m confident his leadership will keep our department moving forward. He is the right person to continue our ongoing reform efforts and the critical task of rebuilding

REACTIONS FROM LABOR, BUSINESS, AND ACCOUNTABILITY ADVOCATES

The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis—representing MPD rank-and-file—hailed Peterson’s selection as a “positive shift in leadership.” Federation President Sherral Schmidt stated that Peterson “has demonstrated professionalism, integri-

nesota African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act. CMAH's Capitol Pathways interns — Leah and Karen — were present throughout the day, embodying the program's core conviction: that the next generation of policy advocates must be trained inside the institutions they will one day shape.

The legislative session's closing weeks made the day's urgency felt. Bills do not pass on goodwill. They pass when organized communities show up, speak with clarity, and hold elected partners accountable.

African Heritage Day on the Hill is CMAH's annual demonstration that the community is doing exactly that.

ty, and a deep understanding of the challenges facing both our officers and the communities they serve,” adding that he is “widely respected by the rankand-file officers and community alike.”

Downtown business organizations and West Bank and Cedar-Riverside neighborhood leaders expressed measured relief. Peterson built longstanding relationships with entertainment district businesses, the Downtown Council, and multi-cultural community associations during his seven years overseeing the First Precinct.

As Minneapolis enters a busy summer events season, that familiarity is seen as an asset.

Among reform and accountability advocates, reaction is more guarded. Organizations including Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB) — the Twin Cities-based all-volunteer organization founded in December 2000 in the aftermath of the shooting death of Charles “Abuka” Sanders, and a persistent watchdog on MPD conduct and the state’s consent decree — have consistently maintained that leadership transitions must not slow implementation of the court-mandated civil rights reforms still underway. No formal statement on Peterson’s appointment has been issued by CUAPB as of publication time.

Page 8 • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Insight News

Heritage From 3 McCormack Baron Salazar, in joint venture with Legacy Management & Development Corporation, was selected as master developer in July 1999.

Violence From 3 gle week last month, each one a window into how thoroughly gun violence has embedded itself in the rhythms of American domestic life: • San Antonio: A murder-suicide left three people dead and one hospitalized, reported as recently as May 27.

• Houston: A murder-suicide claimed two adults and two young children, ages eight and four.

• Amarillo: A gunman opened fire with a rifle-style weapon at an apartment party, killing

insightnews.com

The Minneapolis City Council adopted the master plan in March 2000; construction began in 2001. The plan called for 900 total homes — 440 rental, 360 for-sale — including public housing, workforce, and market-rate units.

The southern parcels were always part of that vision.

They were never incidental.

They were the promise of completeness.

two and wounding ten others.

• Dallas: Back-to-back shootings at a shopping center and apartment complex left two dead and three wounded.

Texas has now recorded at least 18 murder-suicides involving firearms in 2026 alone — representing 10 percent of the national total tracked by the Gun Violence Archive.

city moved on — carries a particular weight in Minneapolis, a city that has been both a national symbol of the demand for justice and a community quietly grappling with violence that does not always make headlines.

City leaders recently launched the Firearm Assault Shoot Team (FAST), a specialized investigative unit focused on solving non-fatal shooting cases. The initiative comes against the backdrop of a documented decline in non-fatal shooting victims between 2021 and 2025, and improved case clearance rates. FAST represents an acknowledgment that solving shootings — not just counting them — is essential to breaking the cycle.

Minnesota legislators,

Close to home: Minneapolis responds

On June 3, 2026, two men were shot in Minneapolis.

Their injuries were reported as non-life-threatening. The suspect remained at large. The city moved on.

That phrase — the

What residents need to know

The receivership is now in the hands of Certus Financial, the court-appointed receiver. The

question of whether the receiver can stabilize the property's finances — and whether the existing residents, many of them low-income families who depend on these units, will be protected — remains open.

The parallel MPHA disposition study raises a distinct but related question: if

the public authority sells the remaining land south of Olson Highway, to whom will it be sold, at what price, and with what affordability covenants attached? The original HOPE VI commitment did not contemplate the public land being released to the market without binding affordability require-

ments.

meanwhile, continue to push for structural change following the August 2025 shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church.

House DFL members are advancing bills to ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and binary triggers, while requiring safe storage and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

"Chicago saw significant reductions in shootings and gun deaths in 2025 — and yet activists report that progress is masking how deeply gun violence still shapes daily life in some neighborhoods."

Pew Research Center analysis, the gun homicide rate fell 27 percent from its 2021 peak, reaching 15,364 fatalities in 2024. Large cities drove the sharpest decline, and 62 percent of cities have returned to pre-pandemic gun homicide rates.

But gun suicides tell a different story. In 2024, gun suicides peaked at 27,593 — comprising 62.1 percent of all gun-related deaths that year.

The guns are not going away.

They are simply finding different targets.

In Chicago, a city celebrated for measurable progress, activists from the city's South and West Sides are sounding alarms. The headline numbers, they argue, mask how profoundly gun violence still

shapes daily reality in neighborhoods where residents have learned to track the sound of gunfire the way others track the weather.

The national picture: Fewer homicides, more suicides

The national data offers a complicated portrait. According to

Insight News will continue to track both the receivership proceedings and the MPHA disposition study. Council Member Pearll Warren's office and MPHA communications have been contacted for updated comment.

What the numbers don't say

Behind every statistic in this story is a family that will not be the same. A child who witnessed something no child should witness. A neighborhood that held another vigil. A mother who is now planning a burial instead of a birthday party.

Insight News will continue to cover gun violence not as a crisis that happens elsewhere, but as a daily reality that touches Black communities with particular force — and demands both local accountability and national political will.

Carlo Petrini firmly believed that dreams and visions, when they are just, capable of inspiring collective participation, and pursued with conviction, are not impossible to achieve.

Petrini From 3 sity of a transformative vision.

One of the most meaningful moments in my journey with Carlo came during the 2012 Slow Food International Congress in Turin, when the grassroots Terra Madre network was formally integrated into Slow Food International's governance. I was given five minutes to address the international gathering. Standing before that extraordinary tapestry of cultures, languages, and food traditions, I asked: What is the best first local food?

The answer I exclaimed was "BREAST MILK"—humanity's original local food. It requires no transportation, creates no waste, and is perfectly adapted to the needs of the consumer. In that moment, I sought to connect Slow Food's guiding principles of "good, clean, and fair" food to the very beginning of human life itself. Food sovereignty begins at birth.

As I stepped down from the speaker platform, Carlo stood up and greeted me with one of his warm, unmistakable embraces. Looking directly at me, he smiled and said: "Entrambi amiamo lo Slow Food per sempre." (We both will love Slow Food forever.) That moment has stayed with me ever since. It captured Carlo's humanity, warmth, and extraordinary ability to build relation-

ships rooted in shared values and shared joy.

Inspired by the original Slow Food Manifesto written by Folco Portinari, I helped lead the development of an Equity, Inclusion, and Justice Manifesto for Slow Food USA in 2018. As co-chair of the EIJ Working Group, I served as the primary author of that document. That same year, Slow Food International invited us to present the EIJ Manifesto during the Terra Madre gathering in Torino—an affirmation of Carlo's openness to transformation and his understanding that "good, clean, and fair" food must also include dignity, belonging, and justice.

In 2022, I embarked upon my first "Joy and Justice Journey," traveling across twenty-five cities in fifteen states during June—visiting twelve Slow Food chapters, ten food cooperatives, numerous urban and rural farms, Indigenous reservations, universities, and community organizations.

Since then, these journeys have expanded into an ongoing national practice, representing an American adaptation of the Terra Madre ethos: linking seeds, storytelling, agroecology, cooperatives, Indigenous knowledge, Black agrarian traditions, and youth engagement into a traveling network of cultural and ecological exchange.

Carlo often reminded the world that Slow Food was never simply about gastronomy.

It was about resisting a culture of speed, extraction, dispos-

From left: Elisa Demichelis, Carlo Petrini and Jim Embry

ability, and homogenization—a global call to protect food that nourishes both people and the Earth while honoring those who grow it. One of his favorite songs was Cielito Lindo, the beloved Mexican folk song whose joyful refrain reminds us: "Ay, ay, ay, ay—Canta y no llores."

(Sing and don't cry.) Even amid ecological destruction, climate crisis, and the industrialization of food, Carlo insisted on joy, music, fellowship, beauty, and celebration.

In September 2026, I plan to make my ninth journey to Terra Madre in Torino. That pilgrimage will now carry a different emotional weight. Carlo's physical presence may be gone, but his spirit will remain embedded in the farmers markets, shared meals, seed exchanges, and communities he helped nurture around the world.

I have decided to dedicate my forthcoming book, Terra Madre—A Journey of Food, People and Possibilities, to Carlo Petrini. It is a small gesture of gratitude for a man whose ideas transformed not only global food culture, but the lives of countless individuals—including mine.

Carlo helped the world remember that food is never just food. It is identity, memory, ecology, justice, and love made visible. In an age of speed, he taught us the revolutionary power of slowing down.

And in a fractured world, he reminded us that another future is still possible—one meal, one seed, one community at a time.

insightnews.com

Rosewood From 3 no accounting.

It was not until 1982, when a descendant named Arnett Doctor helped a reporter bring the story to light, that Rosewood began to re-enter public consciousness. Doctor would spend the rest of his life fighting for recognition and compensation. As historian Maxine D. Jones of Florida State University — who led the 1993 legislative study on the massacre — has said: 'The story was buried for almost 70 years.

We retrieved this story, and it's important to remember the past, we can't forget about the past regardless of how ugly it is.'

America's first Modern Reparation

In 1994, after years of organizing by descendants and advocacy by a law firm that took the case pro bono, Florida Governor Lawton Chiles signed House Bill 591 — awarding $2.1 million in compensation to survivors and their descendants.

The legislation acknowledged that local and state officials had known about the violence in real time, had the ability to stop it, and chose not to act. It further acknowledged that 'an entire town was destroyed and

Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 9 its residents killed or fled, never to return.'

Nine living survivors received direct payments of $150,000. A total of 143 descendants received additional compensation — though the amounts were small, with half receiving under $2,000.

More durably, the bill created a scholarship fund for descendants of Rosewood families to attend Florida state colleges tuition-free.

Florida's Rosewood legislation remains, to this day, the only instance in U.S. history where a state government has paid reparations directly to the victims of anti-Black racial violence. It is regarded nationally as a model — imperfect, incomplete, but real.

"Yes, we achieved reparations for Rosewood, but now here comes the rollback.

We are still not where we want to be. It is an ongoing fight." — Katheryn Russell-Brown, Levin College of Law

The rollback and the lesson for 2026

The Rosewood story has taken on renewed urgency in 2026 as conservative legislatures across the country roll back the teaching of Black history in public schools. In Florida — the same state that passed the Rosewood reparations legislation — subsequent legislative actions have

Rosewood Massacre

constrained the classroom discussion of racial violence. Legal scholars who track the implementation of these laws warn that the history of Rosewood, and of other massacres like the 1920 Election Day massacre in Ocoee, may be silenced in the state's classrooms.

Katheryn Russell-Brown, a law professor and director of the Race and Crime Center for Justice at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law, has put the tension plainly: 'Yes, we achieved reparations for Rosewood, but now here comes the rollback. We are still not where we want to be. It is an ongoing fight.'

For Twin Cities readers engaged in Minnesota's own reparative justice conversations — including the four-bill legislative agenda advanced during the 2026 session — Rosewood is not ancient history. It is a living argument for why communities must pursue both memory and structural remedy simultaneously, and why neither is sufficient alone.

The 1997 film Rosewood, directed by John Singleton, brought the story to wider audiences. A historical marker now stands where the town once thrived. The Real Rosewood Foundation continues its work to preserve family legacies and push for further recognition.

Credit: Study.com

America’s Second Independence Day. Join us at one of our Juneteenth Commemoration events.

Register now at mnhum.org/Juneteenth — Thursday, June 18 Annual Juneteenth Brunch Quincy Hall, Minneapolis Tuesday, June 23 Feeding Our Souls: The Essence of Juneteenth Joy Saint Paul College, Saint Paul Friday, June 26 Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story, 30th Edition The O’Shaughnessy at St. Catherine’s University, St. Paul Sunday, June 28 The Making of America Film Premiere, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis — To learn about sponsorship opportunities, email ann@mnhum.org

Page 10 • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Insight News

insightnews.com

Arts & Culture Freedom, unity, and culture: your Twin Cities summer celebration guide nine days of matches, food, and live music. Final game: July 5.

Additional events are scheduled in Plymouth, Rochester, Owatonna, and St. Cloud.

Full schedule at somaliweekmn. com.

Juneteenth, Somali Week 2026 — Midnimo, and Rondo Days anchor a season of Black and community joy This summer, the Twin Cities host some of the most significant cultural celebrations in the Upper Midwest — rooted in Black history, immigrant pride, and community resilience. Here is your essential guide.

JUNETEENTH JUNE 18–21, 2026

Juneteenth, marking June 19, 1865 — the day Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to deliver the news of emancipation to the last enslaved people — is now both a federal and Minnesota state holiday. This year, the 161st anniversary falls during a pivotal moment: as institutions roll back diversity and equity commitments nationally, Minnesota organizations are mounting more than 20 events affirming freedom and Black history.

MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA JUNETEENTH CONCERT — Orchestra Hall,

Minneapolis Thursday, June 18, 7 p.m. The Minnesota Orchestra presents its fourth annual Juneteenth concert, led by conductor Kedrick Armstrong in his Minnesota Orchestra debut.

The program features Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's The Bamboula, Nkeiru Okoye's Voices Shouting Out, and Brittany Green's Testify! — with dynamic vocalist Melody Betts performing R&B and soul classics.

Tickets available at minnesotaorchestra.org.

ANIKA FOUNDATION JUNETEENTH FAMILY CELEBRATION — Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul Sunday, June 21, noon–6 p.m. Free. The Anika Foundation returns for its third annual family celebration on the Capitol grounds, featuring live performances, food, a kids pavilion, wealth-building resources, and community programming. 75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr. Blvd., St. Paul.

STATE OF BLACK DESIGN CONFERENCE — Minneapolis College of Art and Design June 19–20. A twoday conference building community and celebrating Black designers. Day one features a Juneteenth Social; day two hosts the We On Point Symposium. Tickets from $56.86 at thesobd.com. 2501 Stevens Ave., Minneapolis.

JUNETEENTH AT VIKING LAKES — Eagan Sunday, June 21, 3–7 p.m. Free. Live music, cultural performances, food, Black-owned businesses, and family-friendly activities. Viking Lakes, 815 Vikings Pkwy., Eagan.

As we mark 161 years since emancipation, Minnesota organizations are hosting more than 20 events affirming freedom and Black history — even as institutions nationwide re-

RONDO DAYS — THIRD SATURDAY OF JULY

treat from equity commitments.

SOMALI WEEK 2026 — MIDNIMO | JUNE 27–JULY 5

Somali Week 2026 — Midnimo (Unity) — celebrates the 66th anniversary of Somali independence with a nine-day program expected to draw more than 45,000 people across the Twin Cities. The theme Midnimo reflects the event's mission to honor heritage while bridging communities.

KEY EVENTS:

Lake Street Festival — Saturday, June 27. Four blocks of Lake Street transform into Min-

nesota's largest Somali cultural celebration: food stalls, live music, henna, vendors, face-painting, and tens of thousands of neighbors united under the Midnimo banner.

Ordway Concert — A dazzling evening at the Ordway Center featuring traditional kaban and durbaan instruments, headlined by Suldaan Seeraar alongside local performers.

Global Soccer Tournament — Griffin Stadium, Central High School, St. Paul.

International teams from Somalia, Sweden, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States compete across

Rondo Days — the largest African American-sponsored festival in Minnesota — returns to St. Paul's historic Rondo neighborhood for its annual reunion. The Grande Parade begins at 10 a.m. on the third Saturday of July, followed by a full afternoon of music, food, community vendors, and cultural programming. The festival, co-founded in 1982 by Floyd G. Smaller and Marvin R. Anderson, honors the Rondo community that was fractured by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s — when more than 600 Black families lost their homes. Exact 2026 date to be confirmed; check rondodays. org.

Summer of Black culture: festivals around the United States From Roots Picnic to Essence Fest to the International Black Theatre Festival, the season is packed Summer 2026 is shaping up to be one of the richest seasons for Black cultural celebration in recent memory. From Philadelphia to New Orleans to Winston-Salem, the festivals that anchor the Black cultural calendar are returning bigger, bolder, and more intentional — and several carry special weight this year as the nation also marks its 250th anniversary.

Here is your guide to the major festivals from now

through Labor Day.

ALREADY HAPPENED IN THE RECORD BOOKS

ROOTS PICNIC — Philadelphia, Pa. | May 30–31, 2026 The Roots Picnic made history this spring, moving to the historic Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park — the same terrain where hip-hop and Black culture flourished in the 1980s and early '90s. Jay-Z

headlined alongside The Roots on Saturday, May 30; Erykah Badu anchored Sunday's program. The stacked bill also featured Kehlani, Brandy and Monica, T.I., Jermaine Dupri, and De La Soul. The festival drew more than 100,000 fans over the two-day run, cementing its status as one of the sum-

FESTIVALS 11

insightnews.com

Struggle From 4 necessitated the Voting Rights Act had undergone substantial transformation. Essentially, he posited that the election of a Black president rendered the Voting Rights Act superfluous.

Ibram X. Kendi said, “Just so we’re clear: The Supreme Court claims anti-Black racism is over in order to allow racist state legislators to engineer the largest removal of Black congresspersons in history. The Supreme Court is returning the United States to Jim Crow by claiming Jim Crow won’t return.”

This pattern has recurred multiple times, serving as a continuation of the Civil War (1861-1865) between the United States of America and eleven Confederate southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee). The conflict centered on whether to continue owning, subjugating, dehumanizing, and enslaving Black bodies, and denying Black individuals’ humanity and citizenship.

Since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black Americans have persisted in confronting challenges to full citizenship, equal representation, and political influence. These struggles did not originate in the 1960s but extend back to the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) adopted following the Civil War. These amendments formally abolished slavery and pledged equal protection and voting rights, even as numerous institutions continued to undermine these promises in practice.

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) was enacted to enforce the 15th Amendment and eliminate discriminatory voting practices. Key provisions included prohibiting literacy tests, implementing federal oversight of elections, and mandating “preclearance”—meaning certain states and counties required federal approval before altering their voting laws. However, numerous Southern officials resisted federal oversight, asserting that the VRA infringed upon “states’ rights.” Consequently, some states closed polling places, redrew electoral districts, modified election systems, and employed at-large elections to dilute minority votes.

Prior to the court’s April 29th ruling, the most significant contemporary challenge to the VRA was the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder (2013). This decision invalidated the formula determining which jurisdictions necessitated federal preclearance under Section 5 of the VRA, with the Court arguing that the formula relied on outdated data from the 1960s and 1970s. Critics contended that these weakened protections against discriminatory voting laws. In the aftermath, several

Festivals From 10 mer's signature events.

MIAMI BLACK FILM FESTIVAL — Miami, Fla. | May 27–31, 2026 Now in its second decade, the Miami Black Film Festival showcases filmmakers, directors, and storytellers from across the diaspora through screenings, panels, and intimate industry gatherings. This year's programming was curated with strong representation from emerging voices in African and Caribbean cinema.

COMING UP — JULY

ESSENCE FESTIVAL OF CULTURE — New Orleans, La. | July 3–5, 2026 The Essence Festival of Culture returns to the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans for its 32nd year, marking Fourth of July weekend with its most star-studded lineup in recent memory. Cardi B, Patti LaBelle, Kehlani, Latto, and the duo Brandy and Monica anchor the evening concert series, presented by Coca-Cola. Teyana

Insight News • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Page 11 states enacted voter ID laws, closed polling places, altered redistricting, and restricted early voting.

The recent Supreme Court decision diminishes the protections of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and narrows one of the nation’s most crucial tools for challenging racial vote dilution. The broader concern extends beyond legal matters to democratic principles: when protections against discrimination are weakened, Black communities encounter greater obstacles to shaping the policies and institutions that govern their lives.

This critique transcends political affiliations.

While political parties have evolved over time and assumed distinct roles in the history of voting rights, the central point remains that systemic inequality has persisted across generations through institutions, legal frameworks, and political decisions. No political party should be absolved of criticism, and no community should be compelled to rely solely on symbolic support rather than enduring protections.

The ongoing struggle for Black freedom, dignity, and democratic participation remains a critical issue.

Black people in the United States have endured centuries of slavery, segregation, racial violence, discrimination, and systemic oppression. Despite these challenges, Black communities have consistently fought for human dignity, freedom, and civil rights. Despite attempts to silence, erase, or suppress Black voices, Black people have demonstrated strength, resilience, and determination in resisting injustice.

From abolitionists who fought against slavery to civil rights activists who challenged segregation and disenfranchisement, Black Americans refused to accept inequality as a norm. Leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Ella Baker, and Rosa Parks, along with countless unnamed activists and everyday individuals, exhibited courage in the face of violence, intimidation, and injustice. Their resistance contributed to significant victories, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

However, the struggle did not conclude there. It’ 2026, and Black and brown people continue to face racism, voter suppression, economic inequality, police brutality, unequal access to healthcare and education, and ongoing attacks on civil and human rights. Despite these challenges, Black communities persist in organizing, speaking out, building, creating, leading, and resisting.

Black resilience is rooted in survival, solidarity, culture, and an unwavering refusal to back down, give up, or capitulate in the pursuit of equality, justice, and liberation.

Recalling the sacrifices of those who fought against slavery, segregation, and disen-

franchisement serves as both an act of history and a reminder of the ongoing work. If the promise of freedom and equality is to have any meaning, it must be defended not only in rhetoric but also in law, policy, and public life.

What we can do now: The mid-term election scheduled for Tuesday, November 3, 2026, presents a pivotal opportunity for every eligible Black voter to exercise their right to participate in the democratic process. Prior to the election, it is imperative to verify your voter registration status to ascertain your eligibility to vote. Should your registration be inactive, take immediate action to rectify this matter. Active engagement in all elections, encompassing local, state, and federal levels, is of paramount importance.

Elections fundamentally revolve around safeguarding rights and securing essential resources. It is crucial to select candidates who have demonstrated a steadfast commitment to protecting your rights and ensuring your community has access to the necessary resources for a prosperous and fulfilling life. Casting your vote serves as an act of self-advocacy, directly aligning with your and your community’s core concerns.

It is essential to recognize that elections should not be reduced to a popularity contest or swayed solely by charisma. If a candidate fails to—or refuses to—defend your rights and provide resources that uphold the constitutional promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are not the appropriate choice. Personal preference for a candidate is not a determining factor; rather, focus on their genuine preparedness to advocate for your interests.

In many instances, Black voters and individuals of color may be compelled to make difficult decisions, selecting the candidate who will cause the least harm.

Importantly, voting constitutes only the initial step in the electoral process.

Post-election, it becomes our collective responsibility to hold elected officials accountable for fulfilling their commitments.

Voting is not a panacea; it is a single component of a comprehensive strategy to address the challenges facing our lives. In a representative democracy characterized by a constitution that often favors elite interests, voting alone will invariably prove insufficient.

Patience is essential after casting your ballot, as policy changes rarely yield immediate results. It can take months or even years for new policies to take effect and deliver tangible benefits. Therefore, it is crucial to know who you are voting for and why. Conduct thorough research on each candidate, examining their platforms and promises to determine if their proposals are practical rather than merely theoretical or exaggerated.

Currently, there is an urgent need to impede the harmful actions of the current

Taylor serves as chief curator; chef Nina Compton leads the Essence Food & Wine Festival; and authors Mara Brock Akil and Nikole Hannah-Jones curate the Book Festival at Essence. Daytime programming at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center includes vendor expos, speakers, workshops, and wellness programming. Threeday concert tickets start at $230.

"Every Fourth of July weekend, we gather in New Orleans to celebrate Black excellence in all its forms. But the Festival is more than what happens on stage." — Essence Festival of Culture INTERNATIONAL BLACK THEATRE FESTIVAL — Winston-Salem, N.C. | July 27–Aug. 1, 2026 Formerly known as the National Black Theatre Festival, the biennial event returns to Winston-Salem under its new name — the International Black Theatre Festival — with more than 100 performances on multiple stages across the city. Founded in 1989 by the late Larry Leon Hamlin with the support of Dr. Maya Angelou, the festival unites Black theatre companies from around the world. Workshops, films,

seminars, poetry slams, and a celebrity gala round out the sixday program. Winston-Salem has long been known as 'Black Theatre Holy Ground.'

administration. To reverse the efforts aimed at undermining the rights won by Black, Brown, and marginalized communities, impeachment and prosecution must be pursued. Achieving this requires a strategic shift: Democrats and allied congressional representatives must secure control of both the House and Senate.

The House of Representatives holds the power to impeach, while the Senate is responsible for prosecution. For context, Trump was impeached twice—first on December 18, 2019, and again on January 13, 2021—but was acquitted both times by the Senate.

Looking ahead, Republicans currently maintain a majority in both chambers of Congress, with a 53–47 edge in the Senate (including two independents who caucus with Democrats) and a slim 218–214 majority in the House, alongside three vacancies. In the 2026 election, all 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are up for grabs. For Democrats to regain control, they must achieve a net gain of four Senate seats and three House districts, while also defending their existing positions to avoid setbacks.

This moment calls for collective action, informed choice, and ongoing vigi-

lance—each vote contributes to shaping the future and protecting the hard-won rights of our communities. We will not give up. We will not back down. We will not acquiesce. We will not capitulate. We are strong and resilient. Nothing can stop us.

We have far more power than we realize.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

-Alice Walker For any questions or comments, please contact James Trice via email: Always31187.trice@ gmail.com

LATER IN THE SEASON

Martha's Vineyard Black Film Festival and the Family Reunion culinary festival (hosted at Salamander Resort and curated by James Beard Award-winning chef Kwame Onwuachi) are both scheduled for mid-tolate August. Dates for the Family Reunion, which celebrates its fifth year milestone, are expected to be released in the coming weeks.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. marks its 10th anniversary in September with expanded programming tied to the Smithsonian's yearlong 'Our Shared Future: 250' initiative.

For Twin Cities residents making travel plans, advance registration and hotel booking are strongly recommended for Essence Fest and the International Black Theatre Festival, both of which draw national audiences.

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Page 12 • June 8, 2026 - June 14, 2026 • Insight News The Journal for Community News, Business & the Arts

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Harrison Center

Amstor Food Mart

DOWNTOWN

Summit Academy

Village Social Services

818 Dunwoody Blvd

Park Plaza Apts

Crystal Beauty Salon

10th & Marquette

525 Humboldt Ave

1100 W Broadway

Glenwood Market

YMCA

Penn-Wood Market

W Broadway & Fermont Ave

501 Irving Ave

935 Olson Memorial Hwy

1821 Glenwood Ave 2125 Glenwood Ave

Fleetwood Gross & Deli 2007 Glenwood Ave

Milda's Café 1720 Glenwood Ave

So Low Food

3111 Emerson Ave N

E & L Food

1122 Lowry Ave

Metro Check Cashing 2211 Lowry Ave

Lowry & Penn Market 2211 Lowry Ave

True Vine - New Bethel 2639 Thomas

Great Is Thy Faithfullnes 2901 Emerson Ave

The Purpose

3001 Russell Ave

New Salem Missionary Baptist 2507 Bryant

Proverbs Christian 2114 Lowry

Penn Gas Stop 2606 Penn Ave

All Washed Up Laundromat 3008 Penn Ave

Wally's 1840 Penn Ave

GV Apartments (two bldgs)

Golden Avalley Rd & Penn Ave

Thor Building 3 racks Plymouth & Penn

Minneapolis Urban League 2200 Plymouth Avenue

Comcast Don’t drop 801 Plymouth Ave

NCDC

1000 Plymouth Ave

Micky's Liqour

1104 Plymouth Ave

Karate School/Energy Company 1200 Plymouth Ave

UROC 2001 Plymouth Ave

NRRC

1303 Golden Valley

North Community M B 3951 5th Ave S.

Turning Point

1500 Golden Valley Rd

North Commons 2801 James Ave

North Star School 2410 Girard Ave

Wayman AME Church 1221 7th Ave

Zion Baptist

621 Elwood Ave

Shiloh Temple 1201 Broadway Ave

New Rewsurrection MB 1301 N. 10th St.

United Faith 1156 Aldrich

Spirit of The Lord 1001 Penn Ave

High Praise 1200 N. 7th At

Hospitality House 1220 Logan Ave

Greater Mt. Nebo 1530 Russell

North Community M B 1832 Penn Ave

DTLR 509 W Broadway Ave

Boost Mobile

523 W Broadway Ave

7 Mile Discount

611 W Broadway Ave

Winner Gas

626 W Broadway Ave

Cub Food 701 W Broadway Ave

Elizabeth Hall Elen School 1101 Aldrich Ave

Afrocetric Educational 1501 Aldrich Ave

Merwin Liquor

700 Broadway Ave

US Bank 1030 Broadway Ave

50+

COVERAGE AREAS

1604 W Broadway 1007 W Broadway

1711 W Broadway

Olympic Café

2117 W Broadway

Broadway Liquor Outlet 2201 W Broadway

Sanctuary Covenant 2018 Aldrich

Minneapolis Central 1922 4 th Ave

Greater Mt. Vernon 1800 Dupont

The Movement 1801 James

Griot Ministry 1601 Penn

MINNEAPOLIS — DOWNTOWN & UPTOWN

Dunwoody College

Outdoor Stand 7th & Nicollet 7th & Nicollet

Outdoor Stand 1st St & 2nd Ave S 1st St & 2nd Ave S

Outdoor Stand N. 1st St & 4th Ave N. 1st St & 4th Ave

Harbor Lights HCMC

Elliott Towers

1138 Glenwood

United Christian Church 4300 Queen Ave

North United

4350 Fremont Ave

Watchmen Outreach 4150 Dupont

New Oil Christian 4050 Upton

New Mount Calvary 3859 Fremont

Liberty Community 3700 Bryant

Christian Restoration 4350 Fremont Ave

North Market

44th Ave & Humboldt Ave

Fremont Market 3558 Fremont Ave

Camden Market

42nd Ave & Fremont Ave

Super - USA

3807 Fremont Ave

Pump & Munch

45th Ave & Lyndale Ave

Clark Gas 41th Ave & Lyndale Ave

Fremont Clinic

3300 Fremont Ave

Northside Food Market 3559 N Lyndale Ave

Lowry Food Market 628 Lowry Ave

Star Food Market 818 Lowry Ave

Felowship Missionary Church 3355 4th St

Good News 3400 4th St

Northside Oriental Grocery 3201 Penn Ave

Quick Stop 3601 Penn Ave

Union Liquor 3219 Penn Ave

Spirit of Truth 3254 Penn Ave

New Covenant MB

1115 30th Avenue North

Holland Highrise

3440 University Ave

McDonald Liquors

2389 University Av

5010 S. 34th St

2199 University Ave

Believer Church

1761 University Ave

Amoco Gas

S. 34th St

3900 10th Ave S

Holiday YMCA

3729 Chicago Ave

3501 Chicago Ave

Auto Shop Chicago Ave

Laundratmat Chicago Ave

Wield Shop Chicago Ave

1415 University

Cub Food

1440 University Ave

LA Fitness

1370 University Ave

Project For Pride In Living

Walgreens Lunds & Berlys Henepin Liquor Speedway Gas

2200 Lyndale Ave

Earth's Beauty Supply 608 University

7 Mile

6390 Brooklyn Blvd

Holiday

B P Gas

Nomadic Oasis Barber

2455 Hennepin Ave S

2525 E. Franklyn Ave

Holiday Gas

LONGFELLOW

Long Fellow Market

LAKE STREET

3815 E. Lake St

Chicago Liquors

East Lake Liquor 3916 E. Lake St

Speedway Gas

920 E. Lake St

4320 E. Lake St

Bryant & Lake Bowl

Recovery Center

810 W. Lake St

3400 S. 34th Ave

Speedway Gas

HD Coin Laundry

Street Box Selby & Western

Mississippi Market 622 Selby Ave

E & J Cleaners 642 Selby Ave

Selby Wine & Spirits 778 Selby Ave

Scoops Ice Cream 920 Selby

Carolyn Flowers 921 Selby

Golden Thyme Coffee Café 934 Selby Av

GRAND AVENUE

Kowalski's Market 1261 Grand Ave

Walgreens

734 Grand Ave

Perrier Liquor

801 E. Lake St

3225 E. Lake St

Speedway Gas

Hennep Library

666 Grand Ave

WHITTIER

Maytag Laundry

236 Grand Ave

2727 E. Lake St

5747 E. 34th Ave S HIAWATHA

Walgreens

Mobil Gas

RICE STREET

Merwin Liquors 1700 Rice St.

W. 78th St Nicollet Ave

Holiday Gas

2001 Central Ave NE

Tobacco Shop

8401 Lyndale Ave S

Prime Market & Deli

2409 E. Franklyn Ave

Cub Foods

Merwns Liquor

8348 Lyndale Ave S

Holiday Gas

86th Lyndale Ave S

Mahiripiri Gallery

Emmanuel Church

9001 Penn Ave S & W. 90th St

6030 Xerxes Ave

AM Food & Tobacco

8936 Lyndale Ave S

Speedway

1814 Nicollet Ave

1901 57th Ave N

Pilgrim Rest Church 5100 James Ave

One Touch Beauty Salon 7710 Brooklyn Ste 202

Twin Cities Rise

1011 Broadway Ave

1812 Nicollet Ave

Axis Medical Center 1801 Nicollet Ave

Cub Food

980 Payne Ave

3245 County 10 Rd.

CVS

Outdoor News Rack

810 Maryland Ave

Xerxes & Bass Lake Rd

Walgreens

African A to Z Mart

M & H Gas

Brooklyn Center Liquor

721 Arcade St

1350A Shingle Creek Crossing

Liquor Ware House

Holiday

854 E 7th St.

5710 Xerxes Avenue N

Speedway

RICHFIELD

846 Johnson Pkwy

Cub Food East Side Liquor

1361 Maryland Ave

Sana's Market

1541 Maryland Ave

Jimmy's Food

532 White Bear Ave

Holiday 1770 White Bear Ave 1750 White Bear Ave

Holiday

D & L Foods

Capitol liquor

Liquor Barrel

Cedar & 5th

161 Victoria

7848 Portland Ave S

Otto's Liquors 7850 Portland Ave S

6601 Penn Ave S

CVS 6540 Penn Ave S EDINA

50th France Ave

Edina Liquors Walgreen's

1201 Larpenteur Ave

Big Bottle Liquors

1149 Larpenteur Ave

Grand Ave & Snelling Ave

Noble Laundromat

Beauty Paradise

100 Larpenteur

Grand Ave & Hamline Ave

9056 Lyndale Ave S

Super Casa

6755 York Ave

BP Gas

MGM Liquor

7846 Portland Ave S

Outdoor Box

CVS

Cub Food

Upper Guts Barber Shop

France Ave

301 Mississippi St.

Merwin Liquors

7836 Portland Ave S

Speedway Gas

626 Larpentuer

El Gordo

TBS Mart Foods

BP Gas

Cedar & 6th

LARPENTEUR AVENUE

6000 Portland

7940 Penn Ave S

urban Lights

Outdoor News Box

531 Rice

Speedway Gas

Walgreen's

2197 Old Hudson

Snap Market

629 Rice St.

6444 Lyndale Ave S

7845 Portland Ave S

Outdoor News Box

957 Rice St.

7700 Lyndale Ave S

Walgreens

275 White Bear

Big Discount Liquors 945 Rice St.

Richfield Liquor Richfield Liquor

1177 Clarence St

SAINT PAUL

1196 Rice St.

6930 Brooklyn Blvd.

1180 Arcade St.

1559 Larpenteur Ave

9001 Lyndale Ave S

Metro by T-Mobile

5801 Brooklyn Blvd

Payne Ave Wine & Spirits

Cub Food

The Hillock Apt

696 Rice Street

3301 Hiawatha

6044 Brooklyn Blvd

CVS

Speedway

1700 Rice St.

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

296 E 7th St

MGM Liquor

Moto Market

African Deli

Speedway

Nanny's Jamaican Kitchen

Clinton Laundry Mat

BROOKLYN CENTER

500 E 7th St

Walgreens

46th St Hiawatha Ave

Dragon Star Super Market 8020 Brooklyn Blvd

633 W 7th St

Speedway

1908 4th Ave S

2501 E. 22nd St

Brooklyn Blvd & Starlite Ctr

SELBY AVENUE

City Gyro

Brookdale Christian Center

Cub Food

Walgreens

University & Rice

137 Maryland Ave

9200 West Broadway

1734 W 7th St

8421 Lyndale Ave S

6321 Zane Ave

913B Payne

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

Uptown Ballons

2124 E. Franklyn Ave

Ebenezer Church

Speedway

Minnoco Gas

Fast N Fresh Deli

9200 West Broadway

EAST SIDE

Outdoor News Box

3541 Cedar Ave S

Holiday Gas

Ebenezer Church

2057 Marshall Ave

Speedway

438 University Ave

1625 Rice St.

4801 63rd Ave

7710 Brooklyn Ste 100

Amoco Gas

1445 W 7th St

2501 Hennepin Ave S

2622 Franklyn Ave

Family Dentistry

2027 Marshall Ave

6930 Brooklyn Blvd

Speedway Gas

Unity Temple

71st & Brooklyn Blvd

Marshall Liquor

Speedway

Subway

Zipps Liquor

Outdoor News Rack

981 Marshall Ave

Wolter Bros Liquor

BLOOMINGTON AVE

2951 Central Ave NE

Welcome Ave & Brooklyn Blvd

KFAL Radio

3333 Cedar Ave S

Franklin Ave

Outdoor News Rack

Book of Acts Church International COGIC

Cooper's Food

Check Cash

Liferack Resources

9401 Zane Ave

585 Fuller Ave

Unidale Mall

4440 Snelling Ave S

2329 Central Ave NE

Hy Vee Gas

B.C. Liquor

Winner Gas

Franklin Ave

Camphor Memorial United Methodist

Tin Cup liquors

2000 S. 4th Ave & Franklyn

Wells Fargo Bank

9300 Zane Ave

1125 W 7th St

The Uptown Diner

Health Center

Speedway

Boost Mobil

Walgreens

1815 Central Ave NE

8517 Zane Ave

440 University Ave

317 E. 38th St

Franklin Ave

Super - USA

451 W Central Ave

Gentlemen's Cuts

Ele. Fetus

Senior High-Rise

5200 85th Ave

Mount Olivet Baptist Church

Hook Fish-chicken

1717 Washington Ave NE 2610 Central Ave NE

678 Aurora Ave

Brooklyn Park City Hall

SEWARD

2404 Hennepin Ave S

1902 Clinton Ave

St Albans Church of God in Christ

7700 Brooklyn Blvd

Speedway

Seward Co-op

Grace Temple Church

983 Central Ave. W

Walgreens

Sunrise Grocery

Spy House

1905 3rd Ave S

New Birth Missionary Baptist

665 W 7th St

3620 E. 26th St

Third Ave Food Market

732 West Central Ave

5716 Brookdale Dr

446 University Ave

2327 Hennepin Ave S

801 E. Lake St

Pilgrim Baptist Church

The Gold Key Liquor Store

Outdoor Box

Imaai Church

Global Market

5700 Brookdale Dr

Liquor Barrel

Fit 1st Run

825 E. Lake St

QUICK AFRICAN MARKET

Glamour Cuts

2600 E. 26th St

2448 Hennepin Ave S

7636 Brooklyn Blvd

University & Dale

2105 Lyndale Ave

Speedway Gas

Merwin Liquors

Shop

Cedar Food and Grill

2547 Hennepin Ave S

839 University

7638 Brooklyn Blvd

605 University

1808 Riverside Ave

Wedge Co-op

Dale & Univrsity

St. Peter Church

W. 38th St Nicollet Ave

1200 W. Lake St

Brownstone

600 University Ave

Chicago Ave

1450 W. Lake St

970 University Ave

Park Ave Church

401 E. 41st

3240 W. Lake St

Speedway

University & Dale

3400 Park Ave S

2252 Lyndale Ave S

Hair & Wigs

Terriost Shop Chicago Ave

Subway

Outdoor News Box

1475 University Ave

1182 University

3008 Lyndale Ave S

Family Dollar

7525 Brooklyn Blvd

Family Dental Clinic

Pillsbury House

Gaffrey Deli & Sub

DALE / WESTERN

Speedy Market

UPTOWN

30 Lyndale Ave S

Speedway

6930 Brooklyn Blvd 7330 Brooklyn Blvd #100

756 Snelling Ave

Metro T Moble

3740 Chicago Ave

Saigon Uptown Restaurant

7410 Brooklyn Blvd

Speedway

604 Western Ave

1515 Park S

1200 W. Lake St

Nice Family African

717 Snelling Ave

1685 University Ave

1305 University Ave

Hennepin Liquor

Speedway

W & T Market

Coffeehouse

3240 W. Lake St

Bubble Fresh Laundromat

600 Snelling Ave

Tobacco Shop

Cup Foods

Walgreens

Holiday

CENTRAL / WEST SIDE

Elliott Park Grocery

1450 W. Lake St

Nails & Tanning

510 Snelling Ave N.

589 Dale Ave

3733 Chicago Ave

Lunds & Berly's

Fasika Restaurant

Milburn Clothing

Black Heart Bar

SUBURBS & NEARBY BROOKLYN PARK

1539 University Av

ELLIOT PARK

Park Elder Center

SAINT PAUL — EAST & WEST SNELLING AVENUE

Chrysali Center

Smoke in the Pit

825 Summit Ave S

Speedway

Laundrat Mat

5101 S. 34th St

3731 Chicago Ave

The Kenwood

Sharret"s Liquor

3357 University Ave SE

Just Turkey Restaurant

KENWOOD

First Independence Bank

Speedway Gas

4454 Chicago Ave

1225 8th St

Redeemer Lutheran Glendale Seventh

Sabathani Center

4432 Chicago Ave

730 S. 8th St

1600 Chicago Ave

1800 Glenwood

UNIVERSITY AVENUE

310 38th St

ALWAYS & FOREVER

SAINT PAUL — UNIVERSITY & SELBY

Greater Church

3800 Bloomington Ave

53 Glenwood

NuWay MB 1530 Russell

MINNEAPOLIS — SOUTH POWDERHORN

2600 E. 38th St

Outdoor Stand 10th & Marquette

Free

YEARS IN PRINT

Holiday

1345 Hamline Ave

CVS

6975 York Ave

CVS

6905 York Ave

30 Fairview Ave

Cub Foods

6775 York Ave CRYSTAL

Holiday

African Market

9066 Lyndale Ave S

Bottine Blvd & Wilshire Blvd

Walgreen's

9800 Lyndale Ave S

Crystal City Hall

Next Supermarkes

Holiday Gas

Crystal Liquor Warehouse

Walgreen's

HennCty Library - Rockford Rd

Speedway Gas

Liquor Barrel

1280 W. 98th St S

5628 W Broadway

WINDOM

ROBBINSDALE

Holiday Gas

Hy Vee

Cub Foods

Arco Food Mart

Walgreen

COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

1823 Nicollet Ave 1845 Nicollet Ave

4141 Douglas Dr N

50 W. 98th St S

Family Tree Clinic 1919 Nicollet Ave

Flowers by Miss Bertha 2100 Nicollet Ave

A Slice of New York 2407 Nicollet Ave

Park Avenue Center

56 Ave & Elmhurst

9800 Lyndale Ave S

6401 N 42nd Ave

5444 Nicollet Ave

2430 Nicollet Ave

Glam Doll Donuts

3505 Bottineau Blvd

5937 Nicollet Ave

2607 Nicollet Ave

Shawns Hor Supermarket 2712 Nicollet Ave

Caravelle Photo

Bottineau & 42nd Ave

Speedway

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

Subway

5000 Central Ave NE

Laundermat

4950 Central Ave NE

Top Value Liquor

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

2529 Nicollet Ave

Pancho

W. 66th St Nicollet Ave

2539 Nicollet Ave

BP Gas

Speedway Gas

W. 35th St Nicollet Ave

PPL Career Center

5400 Lyndale Ave S

CBD Health & Wellness 5315 Lyndale Ave S

1021 E. Franklyn Ave

Outdoor Box

50th Grant Ave S

Super USA

5965 Penn Ave S

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