Women’s History Month Salute: Andrea Jenkins

Andrea Jenkins’ journey to becoming Minneapolis City Council president started in high school. Born in 1961 and raised in Chicago during the Civil Rights era not far from where Black Panther Fred Hampton was brutally killed, Jenkins went to Lindblom Technical High School on Chicago’s South Side, where she and several of her classmates wanted to celebrate Black History Week. 

“When I was in high school, Black History Month didn’t exist,” she said as she spoke with the MSR in her corner office inside Minneapolis City Hall one snowy day. “The principal said no, and so we staged a walkout.”

After high school, Jenkins moved to the Twin Cities to study at the University of Minnesota, though her bio says she received her bachelor’s from Metro State University. Eventually, she found herself working for Hennepin County, helping mothers get on public assistance. 

Seeing those young mothers come in over and over again, she said, made her decide to go back to school to study community development at Southern New Hampshire University, where she developed her theory of change. 

“My theory of change is like a three-legged stool. One leg is social services,” she said. “You also need to have advocacy. You need people who are going to be in the streets, making noise, creating the conditions to have these issues heard as an important part of the struggle,” said Jenkins. “Then you have to have people in positions of government authority to make changes in those areas.”

She then returned to the city to work as a policy aide for two different council members over the span of 15 years. She eventually won a seat occupied by one of her predecessors and served South Minneapolis and the city through some of the most trying times in its history. 

“I helped to lead the city through a global pandemic that we’re still dealing with,” said Jenkins. “We’re still dealing with the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent uprisings that really brought a lot of destruction to our community, some of it perpetrated by the police, some perpetrated by, you know, other nefarious actors claiming to be protesters.” 

She mentions declaring racism as a public health crisis and helping pass the 2040 Comprehensive Plan, a blueprint updated every decade to change what is legal to build on city lands, to accommodate regional estimates for population growth.

She’s not done yet. Pointing to a whiteboard she wrote the first day she took office, Jenkins wants to revitalize the 38th Street corridor near where she lives. She hopes to bring in a center for racial healing at the intersection of 38th and Chicago. 

“I would love to see in this space talk therapists, massage therapists, [a] yoga studio, a place where people can come and lay their burdens down for a moment and seek some self-care, some self-love and some beauty,” said Jenkins. 

She also hopes to have increased homeownership opportunities and life expectancy, opportunities for business development, and access to healthy lifestyles for communities of color. “Beyond that, I want to write some books,” said Jenkins. 

Jenkins credits author Haki Madhubuti as an early mentor who inspired her to become a poet. Professionally, she attributes her success to Turning Point’s Peter Hayden, as well as former Minneapolis City Council member and current Metropolitan Council member Robert Lilligren, former Minneapolis City Council member Elizabeth Glidden, and former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton.

She also acknowledges her debt to her mother who, according to Jenkins, “taught me the value of kindness, of hard work,” and to her grandmother, who told her about the virtue of “just having a little bit of property in your life, to ensure that you can overcome the challenges that light will bring.” She pays it forward by mentoring a staff of young women of color as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans youth at the now-defunct drop-in center District 202.

Jenkins, a trans woman, has long believed she has always been a woman. “I was just assigned male at birth. It wasn’t a choice to be a trans woman,” said Jenkins. “The only choice I had in the matter was whether I would stay hidden from myself or if I would share my beautiful self with the world.” 

Even in a time when society is more accepting of trans people, particularly trans women, she still encounters some challenges. “I was challenged by what is known as trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or lesbians who didn’t believe that transgender people still exist,” said Jenkins. 

“I was challenged by the prospect of losing my family, not having access to employment and health insurance, [and] by my friends in the gay community who didn’t believe me and my struggle.”

Nonetheless, she has a mantra for those who wish to follow in her footsteps. “Live your truth. Be yourself. And when you are authentic with yourself and those who you love, others will see and honor and respect that and will respond in time.”