Charles Hallman

When Makolle Williams watched the disturbing videos of Eric Garner’s unwarranted death in Staten Island, New York City last year after a police officer put him in a choke-hold for 15 seconds, it reaffirmed his belief that racism is deep-seated in this country. He fully believed this because he has personally experienced so much of it, beginning with his service during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and intensifying after he returned home.

Minneapolis Police Officer Tyrone Barze spoke to local youth last week at the Clyde Turner Basketball Camp at Phillips Community Center in South Minneapolis. He advised them to use “self-reflection, humility and goal-setting” and to “seek advice from experienced people.”

Alan Page became the first Black Minnesota Supreme Court justice in 1993. His days on the bench officially end at the end of this month. He will retire on August 31 after 22 years as the seventh-longest serving court justice in state history.

A “multimedia boot camp” for nearly two dozen high school students recently took place in North Minneapolis. The University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach Engagement Center (UROC) was the site for the 2015 National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) Journalism High School Workshop (JSHOP) held August 5-7 in conjunction with the 2015 NABJ annual convention in Minneapolis.

Supporters say that the new Seward Co-Op Friendship Store soon to open at 38th Street and 3rd Avenue South can help solve the “food desert” problem in the Central and Bryant neighborhoods. However, it appears a “rift” has developed between the store and the Central Area Neighborhood Development Organization (CANDO) over a proposed agreement.
CANDO officials had hoped for a community benefits agreement (CBA) with Seward Co-Op that, among other things, called for 70 percent of the store jobs go to Blacks and Latinos by December 31, 2016.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) annual convention turned Minneapolis into a “chocolate journalism city” for at least a week, with over a thousand-plus Black folk seen on the downtown streets.

On August 6, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) taped a broadcast on West Broadway in North Minneapolis at Neighborhoods Organizing for Change’s (NOC) temporary offices to speak on the approaching one-year anniversary of the Michael Brown and other police-related killings that led to the Black Lives Matter national movement. NOC Executive Director Anthony Newby told the MSR that those deaths are “our generation’s Emmitt Till.”