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Neighborhood Funders Group Visits the American Indian Cultural Corridor
October 19, 2010
By Sheila Regan
Funders from around the country took a peek at the American Indian Cultural Corridor on Thursday, September 30, during the Neighborhood Funders Group Annual Conference. Led by NACDI Executive Director Justin Huenemann with added insight by Michael A. Goze of the American Indian Community Development Corporation, Suzanne Koepplinger, Executive Director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Bill Ziegler, President/CEO of Little Earth, and other leaders from the Native American Community, the tour revealed to the visitors the history of Franklin Avenue as a Native American hotspot and highlighted the resurgence of the American Indian Cultural Corridor.
The Neighborhood Funders Group is a membership association of grant-making institutions that aims to strengthen the capacity of organized philanthropy and support community-based efforts to organize low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities. Members attending the conference, held in downtown Minneapolis, had the opportunity to tour various communities in the Twin Cities, including the Central Corridor, North Minneapolis, East Side of Saint Paul, farming communities near Owatonna, Lake Street, and The American Indian Cultural Corridor along Franklin Avenue.
The Tour began at the Minneapolis American Indian Center where Huenemann welcomed the guests and gave a bit of historical background about the avenue. More than 70,000 American Indian people left reservation communities for cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver Portland, and Minneapolis, as a result of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, according to Huenemann. Unfortunately, many of those who moved to urban areas didn’t encounter the prosperity that they hoped for, instead struggling to find work and decent housing.
“In the late '60s and '70s,” Huenemann said, “Franklin Avenue was like Skid Row.”
At the same time, Minneapolis became a center of a vibrant American Indian Community, being the home of the American Indian Movement as well as the first urban Indian Center, the first urban Indian Health Board, the first Indian-preference housing project, and the first Indian-controlled survival school. That strong sense of community still reverberates in Minneapolis today, especially in South Minneapolis near Franklin Avenue, where American Indians “are the largest landlord in the neighborhood,” Huenemann said.
As a result of efforts of community organizations and the Native community, as well as the addition of mass transit and urban development, “this throwaway community has become a hotspot,” he said.
After Huenemann’s remarks, the group walked East on Franklin to take a look at Many Rivers East and West, two major affordable-housing projects owned and operated by AICDC. Heunnemann pointed out the Ojibwe floral pattern that marks the front of the building.
After that, Huenemann introduced the tour-goers to Heid Erdrich, who was busy painting an art car with some students from South High School. “Some people do car washes, we do car paintings,” Huenemann quipped, “so just swing your car through and we’ll paint it up.” The car painting activities took place in the parking lot of the building soon to be the home of All My Relations Arts Gallery. Earlier this year, NACDI and AICDC purchased the building that will also be used for NACDI office space.
As the tour-goers walked, they had the opportunity to see Bobby Wilson’s newly revealed mural on the side of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe building. The mural depicts three leaders of the American Indian community: Charlie Stately, a community activist, Pat Bellanger, owner of Native Visions, and Juanita Espinosa, founder of Native Arts Circle.
The group then headed to Ancient Traders, a mixed-retail development that anchors the west end of the American Indian Cultural Corridor. Huenemann pointed out the Native American Community Clinic, which just opened its own dental clinic, and tour-goers went inside Woodlands National Bank, owned by the Mille Lacs Band. They also did some shopping at Northland Visions, which sells Native American products and gifts, and stopped in to check out the library operated by the Minnesota American Indian Women’s Resource Center, which is a lending library that also provides computer access to the community and gathering space for the elders of the community.
At lunch time, funders from NFG were treated to a presentation by Larry Yazzie and Jenny Kaplan, who showcased several Native American dances. Yazzie, who travels all around the country and the world sharing his traditional dances to schools, festivals, and even the White House, said he’s compelled to do what he does both to teach people about his culture and also to break Hollywood stereotypes of Native Americans.
After the dance presentations, a delicious lunch was served by The Wolves Den, which included walleye, frybread, wild rice, and vegetables (with strawberry cake for dessert). While participants enjoyed their meal, they listened to speakers, including Goze, Koepplinger and Ziegler.
Following lunch, the tour concluded with a visit to Little Earth, led by Ziegler. The more than 30-year-old housing community, in addition to providing low-income housing for the community, also provides services, including youth programs and early childhood initiatives.
Sheila Regan wrote this story for the Native American Community Development Institute. NACDI's comprehensive approach to building a more sustainable community in South Minneapolis is supported (in part) by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation through the generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
