Brett Buckner does not call himself an activist. He calls himself a servant. The distinction matters to him, and after spending time with the North Minneapolis community organizer on Blacklight on Sports, it is easy to understand why. What he does is less about the title and more about the daily, grinding, unglamorous work of making the north side better for the people who live there.
Buckner joined host Charles Hallman for a wide-ranging conversation about the new fieldhouse rising at North Commons Park, the next chapter for north side infrastructure, the upcoming elections, and what it meant to leave Minnesota for an HBCU and come home with a completely different understanding of what was possible.
Twelve Years to Break Ground
The centerpiece of the conversation was North Commons Park and the new fieldhouse now under construction, expected to be largely complete by mid-2026. For Buckner, it represents something that should have happened decades ago.
“This is one of the largest if not the largest investment into a neighborhood park,” he said. “But we were elevating it to a regional destination so it can actually serve the community at a critical time.”
Buckner was asked to join a community advisory committee sanctioned by park commissioners to help develop a 30-year plan for north side parks. He made North Commons his non-negotiable.
“I said, ‘I’ll vote for everything else that y’all want. I just want to get North Commons done,’” he said.
What followed was more than a decade of pushing the project forward through bureaucratic resistance, neighborhood skepticism, and political uncertainty. He credited Coach Mike Tate, a longtime fixture at the park, as a key partner in keeping the vision alive. The project ultimately secured federal, state, and local funding simultaneously, a rare alignment that Buckner credited in part to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Mayor Jacob Frey.
“It took over 12 years from the time that we came up with the concept all the way to the time that we hit that first shovel to break ground,” he said.
One of the things he was most proud of was how the project was executed. Rather than shutting down North Commons during construction, the plan was designed to build the fieldhouse first so the community center could continue operating throughout.
“We kept our promise to the community to say we’re not taking North Commons down. We’re just building new,” he said.
The park’s location matters strategically. There are nearly 12,000 children within a one-mile radius of North Commons. The Jerry Gambles Boys and Girls Club, Hospitality House, Harrison, and Booker T. Washington schools are all nearby. The vision is that kids from Edina, Minnetonka, and Woodbury will come to the north side to compete, rather than north side kids always traveling out.
“Instead of going out to Edina and Minnetonka, those kids can come in and participate with us here and start to build better relationships and break down those walls that normally divide us through sports and other cultural activities,” he said.
Buckner also pointed out a sobering fact about the facility’s historical significance.
“This would be the first major facility built in Minneapolis since Central was opened back in the early ’80s,” he said. “That’s a shame when you think about it in a city of this size.”
What Comes Next
Buckner made clear that North Commons is not the finish line. He described a coalition forming around an even larger vision: a mixed-use campus that would include a stadium, housing, a fieldhouse, and office space designed to anchor women’s professional sports in Minneapolis. He is currently working with the Minnesota Vixen, the national champion women’s professional football team, on developing the concept.
“We’re pulling together a concept to do a campus, a mixed-use campus with a stadium, housing, a fieldhouse, and office space, to be able to house women’s professional sports,” he said.
He was equally direct about what he wants from the city’s professional sports franchises. He called on the Timberwolves, Lynx, Vikings, and Twins to do more than occasional community appearances and to invest in the ecosystem being built on the north side in meaningful, sustained ways.
“Don’t just do drive-bys or stop-bys,” he said. “We want them to do some serious connection with our community.”
He also pointed to the broader opportunity to show young people that sports creates careers far beyond playing between the lines.
“They can be the reporters, the team managers, the trainers, the doctors, the agents. Sports has made a lot of people a lot of money outside the lines and this is what we can show our kids,” he said.
On Voting and the Moment We Are In
With elections approaching, Buckner spoke with urgency about the stakes for the community, drawing on what a six-year-old who was just entering kindergarten in 2020 has now lived through: a pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, ongoing displacement, and political chaos.
“Now all of a sudden we have an election that basically says, are we good with what happened or do we want some changes?” he said.
He encouraged people to vote, to protect their right to do so, and to reject any misinformation about voting dates or eligibility. He described working with Common Cause Minnesota on voter protection efforts and urged the community to stay informed and show up.
“Your eyes and your heart and your stomach should tell you what should happen,” he said.
He also reflected on how Minnesotans showed up when ICE came to the north side earlier in the year, pointing to the community’s collective response as a reminder of what organized people can accomplish.
“When Minnesota stood up in the freezing cold, the rest of the country did it,” he said. “When people show up, people show up.”
Hampton University and What Changed
Buckner attended Hampton University in Virginia, an HBCU, after graduating from high school in Minneapolis. He described arriving on campus and spending his first three days in stunned silence.
“My president was black. My mayor was black. The governor was black. Literally everybody,” he said. “First three days I was shell shocked. I couldn’t get my head wrapped around it.”
The experience permanently altered his sense of what was possible for Black communities and Black leadership.
“When I came back home, I realized that things had to change here,” he said. “I knew that we could run our own faces and our own government structures and everything else. It really changed my mind and my heart about what I could be doing.”
Keeping Going
When Hallman asked what keeps Buckner going, his answer was honest and a little tired.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I’m tired. It’s time to pass it off to a new generation. Let them do the work. But this election is too important for us to sit out. This is all hands on deck.”
He described the work as a collective choir, naming organizers and leaders across the city doing parallel work in their own corners of the community. He sees the ecosystem taking shape and wants to make sure the next generation inherits it.
“I just love to be able to see that six-year-old and see my little cousins grow up to be able to say, ‘Yeah, we know exactly why they fought so hard to make this thing happen,’” he said. “We are making our ancestors proud. So we just keep it moving. That’s all we can do.”
He closed with one more item on the agenda: the Blue Line light rail extension, a $3.5 billion project that would connect North Minneapolis to the broader regional transit network.
“If y’all can show me where we can build with somebody else’s money, I’m all ears,” he said. “Three and a half billion dollars coming into our neighborhood to connect us to the rest of the world. It’s ours. Let’s build.”