Floyd memorial at stake in Minneapolis fight
MINNEAPOLIS — Jeanelle Austin is out the door around dawn most mornings, walking the three short blocks from her south Minneapolis home to the street corner where George Floyd gasped his final breaths.
Floyd’s killing in May after he was pinned to the asphalt by a white police officer’s knee hangs like an emotional weight on this community, a diverse and deeply progressive neighborhood of working-class people where handmade signs demanding justice for his death decorate front lawns.
For Austin, 35, it’s why she wakes up early to join a handful of neighbors who carefully tend to a makeshift memorial that draws hundreds of people weekly from all over the world to the corner of 38th Street and Chicago Avenue to grieve and protest. Rarely a day goes by that Austin doesn’t see someone in tears here.
“Maybe they cry for George Floyd. Maybe it’s for someone else,” she said on a recent afternoon. “Some are grieving the pain and suffering of what it means to be Black in the United States of America. That pain runs deep, and that pain has brought them here, to this place.”
But an emotional debate over what should happen to 38th and Chicago has sharply divided this community, pitting neighbor against neighbor over the future of a street corner where the viral video of Floyd’ s excruciating final moments propelled millions of Americans into the streets in historic protests.
Questions aboutwhat to do with this space — the epicenter of a national reckoning over race, social justice and policing—have reign ited tensions between local residents and a city that has long struggled with those very issues.
City leader swant to remove the barriers that have closed the intersection to vehicles, to help boost local businesses and address the dramatic uptick in crime there. But many residents fear that will mean breaking down a memorial that serves as a potent reminder of the calls for justice and police reform that they say have gone unanswered.
“This isn’t just a place of grief. This is a place of protest,” Austin said.
The City Council is expected to consider two proposals as soon as this week that would reopen the intersection but keep closed the northbound lane of Chicago Avenue, preventing cars from driving over the spot where Floyd was killed. But the plans would dismantle much of the memorial and limit pedestrian traffic around the site.
Seeking a compromise
Austin and other neighbors who have been caring for the Floyd memorial have said they won’t give up control of the intersection without some concessions fromthe city on police accountability and investment in Black-owned businesses. Others don’t want the roads reopened at all, a position that Mayor Jacob Frey and other city officials say is “not feasible.”
That has put Minneapolis officials in a difficult spot — torn between their fear of reigniting protests and their desire to regain control of an area where some residents complain that regular gunfire has left them feeling abandoned by the city and its police force. Residents in the neighborhood say officers have referred to it as a “no go zone” and often don’t respond to calls there, an accusation that the police chief has said for weeks that he’s investigating.
Variou sparties feel theyhave an emotional stake in what happens at the intersection, said city council member Andrea Jenkins, who lives four blocks away and has been trying to negotiate a compromise.
“Who does 38th and Chicago belong to?” Jenkins said. “People from all over the city, people from all over the state, people from all over the country, people from all over the world are staking claim on what happens here. But we can’t forget about the people who actually live here.”
The four-block area closed to vehicle traffic is now known as George Floyd Square — or Floyd Town, to some locals. Floyd’s name and face are featured in colorful murals throughout the intersection. Dozens of names of Black people around the country who have been killed in encounters with police have been painted on the road — a list that is half a city block and growing. A circular garden in the middle of the intersection features a large sculpture of a raised fist.
Every morning, Austin, a longtime racial justice activist, joins neighbors to pick up trash, water plants and straighten up the mementos left at the site by visitors. She speaks of the items as something holy given on hallowed ground, calling them “offerings.”
Nothing is thrown away — not the thousands of pieces of art, letters of condolence or photos of other Black people killed by police. Each day, the items are collected and wheeled in a wagon down the block to a community space where Austin, who is in contact with the Floyd family, works with local art conservationists to preserve the items.
In a city where Black residents have long complained about mistreatment from police and neglect by city leaders, Minneapolis officials say they want to honor Floyd’s life as the city looks toward racial healing and change. The council last month voted to rename the part of Chicago Avenue where he died as “George Perry Floyd Jr. Place” and has allocated $100,000 to the creation of a permanent memorial.
No permanent closure?
It’s unclear where the city believes that memorial should be, but it does not appear to include the permanent closure of 38th and Chicago. In August, the city informed local residents they would reopen 38th Street as a first step, but threats of protests followed.
During a recent town hall with Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, some residents urged the city toremove at least some of the barricades. Arradondo told council members that officers are trying to patrol a neighborhood where many residents are hostile to the department.
Safety, smears, anger
The memorial caretakers have accused city officials and others of exaggerating safety conditions, saying opponents are using crimes outside the perimeters of the site to smear peaceful protesting. They say they’ve had to do their own policing — ejecting white supremacists and others who have tried to stir up trouble.
“You are not going to tell us that we are going to be moved. This street does not belong to you anymore, city of Minneapolis,” said Marcia Howard, a 47-year-old high school English teacher and former Marine who helps over see security at the site, during a recent gathering of supporters. “You are going to have to negotiate. You going to have to give us some justice if you want that street back.”
In a public meeting last month, Robin Hutcheson, the city’s public works director, emphasized officials’ sensitivity toward the site, noting that the city had declared racism a public health emergency and committed to new funding to help the surrounding community thrive. “We do not want this to be a return to normal any more than the community does,” Hutcheson said.
But at 38th and Chicago, the memorial caretakers have shown no plans of budging. Volunteers man the barriers overnight, worried that the city could storm in and take the streets back. They’ve started planning for what could be months of protest ahead in the cold weather, purchasing generators and assembling firewood.
Residents gather daily underneath the awning of the Speedway gas station that has been boarded up and vacant since Floyd’s death, sitting in socially distanced chairs as they talk about the issues of the day and civil rights movements of the past.
“The Freedom Summer wasn’t three months. It was seven. The Montgomery boycott lasted over a year,” Howard recently told the group. “It’s not over. We’re not done. The city owes this community. The state owes this community. The country owes this community. And we owe us.”