Grief has become infrastructure in Minneapolis, a city mobilized by trauma

By Alicia Wallace, CNN

Minneapolis (CNN) — During Januarys here, the days are dark and short, the ground is cold and hard, and the subzero air pierces and cuts.

Still, life moves forward.

Frozen lakes take center stage for popular festivals, sporting events and gatherings. A mother strolls to the local grocer with her kid and toboggan in tow. Friends gather outside a local taproom for a game of curling. Strangers lend a hand and a little muscle to push cars out of snowbanks. The daily shovel of the front walk allows for some “cold-enough-for-yas” with the neighbors.

But the small-town-like tranquility that runs deep through this city of neighborhoods has been shattered in recent weeks.

Thousands of armed and masked federal agents have been deployed to Minnesota, with Minneapolis serving as the epicenter of the largest immigration enforcement operation in US history.

Daily life has been upended at schools, hospitals, stores and restaurants and in neighborhoods where sidewalks were once well-trodden with runners, people walking their dogs, families taking daily strolls and children heading back home after getting dropped off by the bus. Days are pockmarked with flare-ups and altercations between federal agents and residents.

Neighborhood chat channels document how friends, coworkers and schoolchildren were here one day and gone the next.

The watershed moment occurred earlier this month, at 9:37 a.m. on a Wednesday, when resident Renee Nicole Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

Once again, the eyes of the world were on Minneapolis, a city and metro area that has had more than its fair share of high-profile and tragic events in recent years – among them the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a city policeman, and the unrest that followed; the assassination of state Rep. Melissa Hortman, who was killed alongside her husband and dog; and the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and school that left two students dead and dozens injured.

Woven through the city are vestiges of that trauma and strife from years past and from days and weeks present. Yard signs, flags, murals, memorials, ribbons and graffiti silently speak volumes of what this city and region have faced, conveying the idea that life here doesn’t move on from grief but instead moves forward hand in hand with it and forever changed by it.

Some residents say those past experiences are guiding them now as they channel the resilience, hardiness and generosity that Minnesotans are known for to once again navigate unprecedented times.

Reliving past trauma

On January 9, two days after Good’s death and during the state-proclaimed “Day of Unity,” artist Noval Noir visited the memorial site off 34th Street and Portland Avenue.

Noir laid her easel and 4-by-5-foot linen canvas against a boulevard tree and started painting a portrait of Good wearing the strapless red dress from her maternity photoshoot, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. The wintry temps became less than ideal for Noir’s process. Her water and acrylic paints started to freeze, so she returned home, where she’s been adding more details in the time since.

Earlier this week, Noir brought the nearly finished piece back to Good’s memorial to show a CNN reporter and photographer.

“Art has always been a form of therapy,” she said. “It might not be words; but you can put powers in pictures, in color, and a stroke of a paint brush.”

Noir, a St. Paul native, specializes in live performance art, such as portraits painted in public, in real time. Some of her past work included memorials painted following the Floyd’s murder.

“Things change you. Trauma changes you graciously,” she said, her eyes welling. “Because when you look at your grandmothers and your mother and learn where they’re from, and you can’t believe that you’re reliving some of their stories.”

Moments later, a minivan quickly pulled up and parked at the memorial. Sheletta Brundidge ran from her car to give Noir a big, rocking embrace.

“I brought my kids here to deliver flowers and pray; because three children, they no longer have their mother,” said Brundidge, a local author and comedian who runs a podcasting and production company. “You captured this so beautifully and then shared it with us. God bless you for your talent and how you are helping us to grieve and find strength at the same time.”

The site of Good’s shooting is less than a mile from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the corner where Floyd was killed in May 2020. The uprising and unrest that followed – a culmination of persistent concerns about racial injustice, police brutality and past fatalities – intensified into rioting, arson and looting centered around South Minneapolis, particularly the Lake Street corridor, as well as other parts of the Twin Cities.

“The geographic proximity of these two cases of law enforcement lethal violence are really stunning, and that’s causing a repeated trauma for people in South Minneapolis,” said Michelle Phelps, a University of Minnesota sociology professor whose research focuses on the sociology of punishment and the politics of policing.

“Not only are (residents) watching this footage, but then all the aftermath – having helicopters circling ahead, constantly being vigilant and afraid at night, watching for outsiders’ license plates – and having this site of grief and mourning outside your back door,” she added, making reference to the concerns at the time about non-residents such as members of extremist organizations, attempting to sow discord or incite unrest.

A community of ‘strong weak ties’

While trauma, heaviness, fear and uncertainty loom large over South Minneapolis, there’s a silver lining that’s emerged, Phelps said.

People have reactivated the lines of communication and networks built to support one another in the summer of 2020.

“If you look at social media or Nextdoor or Facebook community pages, they’re full of people offering to drive groceries to people who are afraid to leave the house,” she said. “There’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot of trauma, there’s a lot of hurt, but there is also a lot of resilience and support and people coming together.”

At Pow Wow Grounds, a Native-owned coffee shop in the Phillips neighborhood, members of several nations gathered to discuss the ICE activity as community members filed in to drop off donations. Members of tribal nations from the Dakotas have traveled to Minnesota to provide tribal IDs as enforcement activity and concerns have escalated.

Erica Crazy Hawk, 45, said she’s concerned about her mother, who’s in a group home in the state.

“For my mom, (the employees of the facility), they’re Somalian, so that’s the fear I have, because I don’t want (ICE) to take the people that are helping to take care of my mom,” said Crazy Hawk, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe.

Minneapolis is far from alone in navigating high-profile events and bearing scars from multiple tragedies past. But as the global spotlight turns back on the city, those recent events are brought to others’ minds, said Jacqueline deVries, chair of the history department at Augsburg University in Minneapolis.

“They’re thinking, ‘Wow, this just happened with George Floyd. What is going on? Is it going to turn into another George Floyd moment?’” she said. “I actually think the moments are quite different. One was a rebellion against local police, and this is against a federal incursion that is viewed as unjust. Both of them were events perceived as unjust.”

There have been plenty of flash points in Minnesota’s past that have created the foundation for the social activism seen today; but also feeding into the events and response is the city and state’s long history of welcoming immigrants and refugees (including the heavy sponsorship activity by Catholic and Lutheran churches and charities), she said.

“In sociological terms, Minneapolis has ‘strong weak ties,’ meaning that people tend to be plugged in here to various networks (of acquaintances) – whether it’s their school or their church or their synagogue, or they went to one of the universities or colleges,” she said. “And so, news spreads, and not just through usual channels. But it’s why all these Signal channels could have been set up so very quickly, why demonstrations could happen so quickly.”

Neighbors showing up for neighbors

The barrage of images broadcast out of Minneapolis and surrounding regions depict violent and brutal encounters and capture moments of utter fear, pain and confusion.

However, there’s an undercurrent of activity sprawling throughout the city and state that appears to stand in direct opposition to those visuals.

Extensive mutual aid networks have quickly popped up across the metro area. Homes, businesses, churches and clandestine warehouses are serving as collection points for donations. Throngs of volunteers shuttle items, run errands, or offer rides to those in need.

In Minneapolis’ Uptown district, it’s far from business as usual. Retail stores, bars and restaurants have been transformed into mutual aid hubs.

Earlier this month, the shop floor of local business Smitten Kitten was filled with bags and boxes of food, household and personal care products. In the back room were stacks upon stacks of toilet paper, diapers and paper towels.

“We had a lot of organizing that happened in 2020; those connections are still strong, even though they don’t see each other every day; but we can re-up those connections, remobilize those same people and get stuff done,” said JP, Smitten Kitten’s owner, who founded the adult store in 2003. “And I think that’s a somewhat unique foundation that Minneapolis and St. Paul and the Greater Twin Cities area have, because we’ve done it.”

However, this time around, the charitable efforts faced unique challenges, said Anne Lehman, Smitten Kitten’s acting manager. Lehman noted that ICE agents were circling the store in their vehicles, and there were instances of volunteers being followed or stopped.

“It was community watching community, which felt amazing and awesome; but also, this is not something that (volunteers) are trained to do,” Lehman said, noting the concern that residents’ safety was being put at risk.

The activity got to be so heightened that the distribution was moved out of Smitten Kitten and to several undisclosed locations.

But the efforts persist.

“Minneapolis is beautiful, it’s a town that’s full of heart and soul; and we have our problems, like every city does,” JP said. “But these people who live here are grounded, salt-of-the-earth folks and just everyday people who show up for ourselves and our neighbors consistently.”

“Our humanity here is alive, and it’s strong.”

Seeking out the ‘better angels’

In South Minneapolis, the iron barbells and kettlebells at Hardshell Fitness serve as vehicles for connectedness, said owner Ben Swarts. When Hardshell opened in its current location in September 2020, it was intended to provide a space where people could “support each other during the tough stuff,” he said.

“I think a lot of the events of the past few years have really shown people the importance of community and the importance of each other versus any other outside or government help,” he said.

“Caring about each other and having the resources to take care of our most vulnerable is what the United States is supposed to be about.”

In the city’s northern end, an outdoor neighborhood event is taking a different form in its second year. The Northside Luminary Light Up in North Minneapolis features hundreds of luminaries – lanterns housed in hollowed-out sculpted ice – as well as a space for neighbors to gather around bonfires and enjoy hot chocolate.

“I was starting to market it this year, and it just felt a bit tone-deaf to be inviting people to a magical evening in the community garden,” said organizer Brian Mogren. “So, this year’s event is being shaped by the deep pain our community is experiencing right now in the wake of the killing of Renee Good and the escalation of ICE activity.”

The event at the end of January will feature 400 luminaries, about double the amount from the year before, and will include stories shared by residents, a moment of silence for the hurting community, and collection for donations. The pivoting of the event, Mogren said, takes inspiration from the poem that poet and author Amanda Gorman wrote on January 8 to honor Good.

“There’s a stanza in the poem that says, ‘change is only possible and all the greater when the labour and bitter anger of our neighbors is moved by the love and the better angels of our nature,’” Mogren said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I believe that this event is going to really reflect the better angels of our nature and bring them out.”

The hope, he said, is for this also to reach those outside of the community.

“I’m aware that ICE agents are also human beings, and certainly among the 3,000 or more who are here in Minnesota, there have to be some who are questioning if this is what they signed up for,” he said.

“My hope is that they’ll see in what we’re doing, that there’s another way of being in the world, and that there’s room in our caravan for them, too.”

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