Minneapolis City Council member Cam Gordon hosted a Ward 2 forum Green New Deal For Minneapolis this past week. The event included guest speakers Patrick Hanlon, Timothy DenHerder-Thomas, Alice Madden, Nina Axelson, Isaac Smith, Stacy Miller, and Charles Frempong-Longdon. To watch the forum, please visit Green New Deal For Minneapolis.

• Celebrating Black History Month

MINNEAPOLIS – African Americans have contributed to America for over 400 years and this month we celebrate those contributions and the legacy of Black Americans in the United States. The Minnesota Green anti-racist leaders have been busy in the fight for racial justice. Green Party activist Trahern Crews worked closely with city councilwoman Jane Prince on working on and passing bipartisan resolution the Saint Paul Recovery Act which will set up a commission to study reparations at the city level in Saint Paul City Council passes Reparations ordinance

The Rondo Days Parade marches through the Rondo neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota, on July 21, 2018. Photograph by Tony Webster

ST. PAUL, Mn. - The movement for reparations for Black Americans has seen greater urgency since the police killing of George Floyd last year. And in the state where he died, the effort to make amends has taken a big step.

This week the St. Paul City Council unanimously approved a new commission to look at ways to produce financial reparations for descendants of chattel slavery who live in the capital city.

SAINT PAUL, MN – The Saint Paul City Council will consider a resolution on Wednesday, January 13 calling on the city to advance the cause of racial healing by exploring reparations for American Descendants of Chattel Slavery who live in Saint Paul. The resolution calls for the creation of a Saint Paul Recovery Act Community Reparations Commission, which will guide the city on strategies to grow equity and generational wealth, and eliminate disparities experienced by African Americans in Saint Paul.

2020 was a very intense year for the Green Party of Minnesota and America in general. From Covid 19 to the George Floyd worldwide protest the MN Green Party was on the frontlines.

Minneapolis Park Board Commissioner Latrisha Vetaw announces run for Minneapolis city council in ward 4.

Minneapolis city council member Cam Gordon announces reelection campaign. 

• Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement St. Louis, Green Party of St. Louis and the Committee to Elect Betsey Mitchell as St. Louis County Executive

The formation of the United States was based on white supremacy. This country was built on the backs of enslaved Africans, who were never compensated for the past four hundred plus years of their forced labor and suffering. Exploitation, land-loss, destruction of original identity, genocide, state violence and systemic racism continued in chattel slavery’s aftermath and still haunt the present in manifold ways.

• Green Party Steering Committee member Trahern Crews holding sign in front of the Minnesota state Capitol to mark Juneteenth by demanding reparations and police reform legislation from state lawmakers.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota's Black Lives Matter chapter took to the state Capitol on Friday to mark Juneteenth with a demand for reparations and real police reform in a continued push for racial justice following the death of George Floyd.

Juneteenth, the traditional commemoration date of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, has taken on new resonance this year. There have been protests around the U.S. and beyond stemming from Floyd's death after being restrained by Minneapolis police officers.

On Memorial Day 2020 Officer Chauvin, now a former police officer of the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), murdered George Floyd in the state of Minnesota where I live. The former officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight terrorizing minutes, which ultimately led to the death of Mr Floyd. This event was live streamed by a Minneapolis resident on Facebook where you can hear community members telling the officer to stop because they knew he was killing Mr Floyd. Officer Chauvin and the other officers involved have been fired from the MPD and Officer Chauvin was formally charged with third degree murder.

Black Lives Matter spokesperson and Green Party Steering Committee co-chair Trahern Crews tells us about Minneapolis, the US city that has become a symbol of racism, police brutality and inequality.

George Floyd, the African-American man who was killed in brutal fashion by police performing an arrest, quickly became a symbol of the oppression and violence suffered by people of colour in the United States. The pain and anger of thousands burst forth in Minneapolis. Day after day, fires burned in protest and anger over a murder that will leave a mark on the city's memory. Demonstrations were soon taking place all over the country, in dozens of major cities – including Los Angeles, New York and Detroit – as well as hundreds of smaller cities and towns. In Detroit, a 19-year-old man who was taking part in the protests was killed as a car pulled up and fired shots into the crowd. Three more people lost their lives in similar circumstances elsewhere, and a curfew was imposed on 25 major urban centres. These kinds of numbers hadn't been seen since the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King, in 1968.

• Both in Israel and the US, conversations about reparations and the Palestinian right of return are stifled by arguments explaining why injustice must go on and a yearning for the status quo.

The calls “Black Lives Matter” and “Free, Free Palestine,” serve to remind us that Palestine is not free and that if the lives of Black people mattered, there would be no need for the call. In both cases, people are in the grips of a cruel, racist system that refuses to let go. In both cases, people are being hunted down, caged, strangled, and shot to death, and the root cause of their suffering is rarely addressed.