Days of Rage, Nights of Fire: A History Tour of Midtown Minneapolis

The week of May 25, 2020, was one of the most difficult in Minneapolis’s history. It began with the murder of George Floyd and culminated in the burning of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct, along with many other buildings on Lake Street and beyond. This walking tour is an effort to keep the memory of that time alive. You’ll hear about the events, day by day, with a few detours into the Midtown area’s deeper history.

The tour begins at George Floyd Square, at the intersection of 38th Street and Chicago Ave, and ends at the site of the former Minneapolis Third Police Precinct. You’ll head to Lake Street via Powderhorn Park, where you’ll hear poet Ed Bok Lee read his love letter to a neighborhood, Powderhorn. Along the way, I’ll point out the 1928 Art Deco Midtown Crossing building and the Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, where 27,000 souls lie.

As you walk, you’ll relive the events of the week of May 25, 2020 – and the moments when it felt like things were spiraling out of control – by hearing a combination of interviews and the author’s personal experience. The story begins on Memorial Day with the tragic events at the 38th and Chicago. You’ll then find out how the unrest began, and what it entailed. You’ll hear from local business owners who watched as gas stations and small businesses around them were looted and defaced during the riots.

On this tour, you’ll also:

• Find out how the 38th St. Cultural District was once home to a thriving Black community, packed with Black-owned businesses like Carolyn Holbrook’s mother’s hair salon
• Hear about the 1967 Plymouth St. riots and their parallels with May 2020
• Meet the “Umbrella Man” who triggered the Minneapolis riots
• Hear the story of the radio producer who managed to save a historical Native American radio archive, just a few hundred feet from the Third Precinct
• Learn about Minneapolis’s de facto segregation, racial covenants and achievement gap
• Listen to poet Shannon Gibney’s chillingly prophetic poem, Minneapolis, revisited
• Be reminded to keep being shocked by injustice, as writer, literary arts educator, and arts activist Carolyn Holbrook urges

Sensitive listeners should be aware that this tour covers difficult topics and scenes, such as the death of George Floyd and two others who passed away during the unrest, as well as the loss of many people’s businesses and livelihoods.

As the week of May 25, 2020, recedes into the past, please join me on this 75-minute Minneapolis walking tour to help preserve the memory of that pivotal time, recalling both what was lost and what was gained, in the days after the murder of George Floyd.