North Star Journey

As a child in Georgia, Reatha Clark King picked cotton for $6 a day to help her family make ends meet. Then, buoyed on the hopes and expectations of her family and church, she blazed a trail from a one-room schoolhouse in the segregated South to college.   She pushed past gender and racial barriers as a Black woman to become a research chemist in the 1960s, contributing to NASA’s moon landing. She...

In Korea, people often get together for kimjang, a gathering to make large batches of kimchi, the traditional spicy fermented cabbage delicacy. Recently, I joined about a dozen people gathered for kimjang at a house in south Minneapolis. Unlike traditional kimjang, most of the participants were complete strangers, albeit with a shared interest in kimchi.  We rolled up our sleeves, pulled on gloves...

As parents, we teach our children how to move through the world. But as our children grow older, we learn from them, too. That relationship can grow into a real partnership and friendship — and a positive support system pushing each other to be better and do better. Our next Power Pair is a good example of that transition: Mother-daughter duo Rose McGee and Roslyn Harmon. It’s part of our new seri...

Cherise Ayers was president of the student council at Central High School in St. Paul in the late 1990s. Two years ago, the St. Paul native returned to Central in a very different leadership role: as principal. Central is the oldest high school in Minnesota, founded in 1866. Known for strong academics, it was one of the first schools in the state to offer an international baccalaureate diploma pro...

Ethnic studies will roll out to Minnesota K-12 classrooms in 2026. The content area was added to the state social studies standards this winter, joining history, geography, economics and government as major themes. The Minnesota Department of Education is still working on a final framework to guide curriculum. But some districts aren’t waiting. In 2022, both St. Paul and Minneapolis public schools...

Summit Academy OIC, a job training center in north Minneapolis, bustled with activity on a sunny Tuesday. Inside, students sat in classrooms learning how to read blueprints and cut wood for special projects. Outside, aspiring carpenters built frames for homes in a large garage on campus, with electrical students wiring lights in a nearby building. Modern and compact, its unassuming exterior belies...

Amid shelves of aloe juice, edamame and pomelo fruit, shoppers and employees chat as ambient flute music plays overhead. Flags from around the world hanging above the aisles move slightly in the HVAC breeze — Kuwait dances with China, Singapore and Ethiopia overlook the produce aisle.  It’s only fitting for the biggest international grocery store in both North and South Dakota: the Asian and Ameri...

Justis Brokenrope has collected vinyl by Native musicians for the past decade. Now he shares that music with the digital world.  “You can listen to music nowadays without ever touching a CD, a record, or a tape,” said Brokenrope, who is Sicangu Lakota. “It’s just so digital and ubiquitous all the time. But to hold the physical thing and then to see yourself represented in that, and to see your com...

Updated: 12:20 p.m. Zak Amin has worked as a liaison to Kurdish families, and as an English as a second language instructor at Moorhead Public Schools. This fall he started a new class for Kurdish students to learn about their language, culture and history. Amin not only teaches Kurdish language to these students, he teaches English as a second language to many of their parents. He saw a communica...

A new documentary, “Hope in the Struggle,” tells the story of civil rights activist Josie Johnson, chief lobbyist for Minnesota’s fair housing law and the first Black member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Johnson and Twin Cities PBS executive producer Daniel Bergin about her legacy.

The rhetoric is inflammatory, but there’s no disputing the data. The number of migrants who crossed the southern U.S. border is hitting historic highs . In December, the Department of Homeland Security reported more than 300,000 people crossed the border, either by applying for asylum at entry points or by trying to cross the border illegally. According a Pew survey , Americans across party lines...

Jamar Hardy knows home equity is a key to building wealth. He also knows pathways to owning a home haven’t always been clear of obstacles for buyers of color. Hardy, a real estate agent and managing broker of an Edina Realty office in south Minneapolis, has high hopes that a new state program aimed at lifting up buyers in historically disadvantaged communities will change that. “This is unpreceden...

Kimberly Caprini grew up on the north side of Minneapolis participating in activities at the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center. Like other young Black kids at the time, she spent many summers as a camper at its Camp Katharine Parsons.  “I was always afraid of everything outdoors, bugs, birds, squirrels, grass,” she said. She visited the 106-acre campground on Oak Lake near Watertown as an adult re...

Historian Brenda J. Child stares at a buttery yellow sky framed by converging treelines reflected upon a lake. The scene is a painting by Duluth-based artist Jonathan Thunder and it’s called “On the Grave of the Giant.” Below the sky’s glow is a couple harvesting wild rice from a canoe. On the lake bottom are the skeletal remains of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. The painting is on public view...

In the coming weeks Electric Nation will deliver 10 Ford F-150 Lightning pickup trucks, and a Ford Mustang Mach E, all EVs, to six tribal fleets across the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. Five other EVs will be delivered later.  The project’s total value is $13.4 million.  It’s the brainchild of Native Sun Community Power Development Executive Direct...

Once again, public officials in Minnesota are considering changing the name of a lake which includes a derogatory term used to describe Native Americans. The Ramsey County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing on Tuesday morning on the proposal to rename Savage Lake in Little Canada. The lake is two bodies of water, split by I-35E as it runs between St. Paul and I-694. The Little Canad...

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke during three known visits to Minnesota. King touched on topics ranging from colonialism to the war in Vietnam. The first of King’s speeches in the state happened more than 70 years ago, but the messages still resonate in the places he visited. A sermon to pastors in St. Paul  Martin Luther King Jr. first came to Minnesota on Jan. 22, 1951, at the request of Clifford An...

It’s so important for kids to feel like they fit in, whether that’s at home, at school or in their communities. Ideally they’d feel like they belong in all these spaces, but that can be tough if you don’t fully understand yourself or your family history. MPR News host Angela Davis revisits a conversation from last year she had with two Minnesotans of color about their paths to knowing and loving t...

The Twin Cities are at the epicenter of a dynamic shift in the world of land stewardship and restoration work. Leading the charge are two nonprofit environmental organizations — Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi and Owámniyomni Okhódayapi.   In the past they were predominantly led by white men. Today, they are being overseen by two Native American women.   For now, Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi is headquartered on...

Part of the ceiling is missing and wires sit on the floor next to a ladder. Jannie Seibure stood in the center of the mostly empty space and smiled at what the outdated mall will soon become. “At the front of the store, we're going to have a showcase of travel accessories… your luggages, your backpacks, your pillows, you name it, we're going to have a lot of good stuff to meet your travel needs,”...

The walls inside Bridge Healing Center in St. Cloud are painted soothing hues of blue and green, a deliberate effort to help visitors feel relaxed and welcome.  The hallways are lined with colorful paintings by a local artist featuring people in East African dress, with encouraging phrases in both English and Somali. “A lot of people, when they walk in, they see these pictures and they feel welcom...

J.D. Steele doesn’t just walk onto a stage. He bursts on with a mic, full of energy and ready to belt into song. Steele is the oldest sibling in the Minnesota gospel group The Steeles. And he’s been making music and spreading soul and joy for 40 years in Minnesota. Steele toured with actor Morgan Freeman on “The Gospel at Colonus,” which landed on Broadway in 1988. He collaborated with Prince duri...

You may have heard of Betty Whiteout, Ctrl Salt Delete, Sleetwood Mac or Plowy McPlowface — past winners of the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Name a Snowplow Contest. And while the now-annual event garners thousands of punny monikers, some plow drivers are hoping it’s an opportunity to keep Indigenous languages alive, one truck at a time. The contest was born in December 2020, during th...

Minnesota’s Black middle class is one of the smallest in the nation. Why? Experts point to the destruction of the middle-class Black neighborhood of Rondo in the 1950s, the sharp racial disparities in education and wealth, and the fact that many Black professionals nationwide are migrating to areas south and west. But designer and entrepreneur Houston White says another reason is the absence of Bl...

It’s cold and dark outside the Church of the Assumption in Richfield at 5 a.m Tuesday. At least a dozen parked vehicles idled in the lot, waiting for the church’s doors to open up. The parishioners were eager to get a seat for the musical event to celebrate the feast day for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. The band known as Mariachi Estrellas de Minnesota walked down the aisle,...