When Khadra Farrah’s grandson was nine years old, he asked her where he would play if he moved into a highrise apartment.

At Glendale Townhomes, where they have lived since 2009, Farrah’s grandson has a backyard, sidewalks lined with grass and a park within walking distance. He was an active child that loved to attend community events, walk to school and play in the space Glendale offered. It seemed difficult for him to fathom moving to a small apartment.

Farrah’s grandson is not alone. Other residents have expressed concerns over displacement, as several times over the past decade, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) has considered rebuilding Glendale Townhomes. These ideas have never gotten farther than the planning stage and residents have resisted as redevelopment could mean displacement.

Gaining local historic designation would prevent MPHA from significantly altering Glendale Townhomes, yet the Minneapolis Business, Inspections, Housing and Zoning (BIHZ) committee agreed to table the motion indefinitely after a failed vote on June 22.

The committee’s vote follows six years of organizing by Glendale residents, who have met resistance from some Minneapolis City Council members hoping to add more housing units in the future.

Two members, including Ward 2 council member Cam Gordon, voted to move it forward, leaving four votes against it. The motion will be brought up again July 13.

What historic designation means

Glendale’s public townhomes were built in the 1950s during a housing shortage after World War II soldiers returned to the area. They have housed veterans, University of Minnesota students, and most recently, Hmong and Somali immigrants and refugees.

The townhomes accept residents based on income. Each person pays 30% of their income, no matter how much they make.

In 2015, the National Historic Register recommended that Glendale Townhomes be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Council member Gordon nominated Glendale for a local historic designation in 2018. A year after the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Committee recommended a designation in 2020, the BIHZ committee voted on it in June.

Hess Roise and Company, a Minneapolis historical consulting firm, found that Glendale met three criteria for local historical designation: significant historical events, distinct architecture and unique landscape and design.

Glendale was the first public housing in Minneapolis — it is a “rare example” of public housing as townhomes and designers used the hilly region to create green space.

The family-oriented space is what brought Farrah to Glendale, she said. She has raised her grandson there and believes Glendale’s townhome design is a necessary type of public housing for families.

The local designation creates building regulations that operate similar to zoning codes, historian Charlene Roise said. MPHA could renovate the interior of the building, but the outside of the building would have to remain intact if the townhomes received a historical designation. It could update the exterior, such as install new windows, if necessary, but Glendale would have to keep historical integrity.

According to the MPHA website, if MPHA were to redevelop Glendale, they would provide housing for current residents during construction. Glendale residents would be allowed back to redeveloped units.

The Defend Glendale and Public Housing Coalition has been pushing for the historical designation to pass in order to prevent any possible displacement.

“I want the historic protections to protect the homes. I don’t want them demolished,” said Fadumo Mohamed, a resident of Glendale who has lived there since 1997. Her quotes were translated from Somali to English through another resident.

The need for denser public housing

Ward 6 City Council member Jamal Osman voted against the historical designation and said he most likely would not support it when it came to a vote again.

The public housing wait list has thousands of people on it and, for many, it will be years until they secure a spot, Osman said.

“I talked to MPHA and what they’re finding is that they could see more units [at Glendale] and start development in the future,” Osman said. “If we give this designation, that would not be possible.”

Gordon said in order to build more public housing nearby, the city would most likely have to buy more land.

The Prospect Park Association (PPA) is in support of giving Glendale the historic designation.
“If people living somewhere are fighting to get something, it’s probably in the best interest [to listen to them],” PPA member Ben Tuthill said.

The Minnesota Daily sat down with Yusra Arab, one of the Ward 2 City Council candidates to talk about her policies and how she plans to bring more BIPOC representation to City Hall.

Tell me about yourself.

“My name is Yusra Arab, I’m a mother, an advocate and a Ward 2 resident. I went to high school in Washburn and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a political science degree. I have a 12-year-old daughter and I currently reside in the Southeast Como neighborhood.”

So you’re right over by the University?

“Yes, I’ve been out here since my days at the U. I’m an only child, which isn’t really typical in the East African family. I was raised by a single mother in public housing in St. Paul. I fled Somalia when I was around three, and I haven’t been back since. I’ve been in Minnesota for 23 years now.”

Why did you decide to run for City Council?

“I worked as a policy adviser in the sixth ward for four years and, to be quite honest with you, it was what I saw and experienced while at City Hall that prompted me to run. One of those things were the wide disparities that exist for BIPOC communities. The fact that we don’t really have a champion at City Hall. We have allies but we don’t have actual individuals who reflect the communities they serve, who are on those decision making teams.”

What big issues are you focusing on in your campaign?

“I’m a big supporter of affordable housing. I grew up in public housing and I remember the importance of my mom qualifying to get a voucher and how that helped us get out of poverty. And so, housing is a big issue to me and a personal issue. Public safety is another area. [I want] a more holistic approach to public safety, one that makes sure that all members of our community are protected equally … And environmental justice, and injustice, and making sure that communities of color, who historically were at a disadvantage when it comes to the environment, partake and are aware of what is on the table in finding sustainable solutions.”

What are your plans for dealing with policing and public safety?

“Policing in its current form isn’t working … and we need to address it urgently. Our law enforcement officers should be held to the highest standard, they should be accountable for their actions. They should be appropriately trained, and they should be demilitarized, and they should be an extension of the communities they serve … Public safety is more than just police response. At least to me through public safety, ensures that individuals and communities have the resources and support needed to address critical societal failures. We need access to affordable housing, food security, clean and reliable transportation and accessible health care, including mental health.”

What are your plans for housing?

“[I will] continue to invest in affordable housing production and preservation, whether it’s in assistance with Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, making sure that public housing isn’t privatized and gentrified. One of my main priorities is advancing partnership opportunities with the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and expanding the number of affordable housing units for residents at or below 30 AMI [Area Median Income] … I also prioritize the creation of pathways to support affordable homeownership, especially our BIPOC communities.”

This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.

Correction: A previous version of this story misquoted Yusra Arab. The correct quote is: “Policing in its current form isn’t working … and we need to address it urgently. Our law enforcement officers should be held to the highest standard, they should be accountable for their actions. They should be appropriately trained, and they should be demilitarized, and they should be an extension of the communities they serve … Public safety is more than just police response. At least to me through public safety, ensures that individuals and communities have the resources and support needed to address critical societal failures. We need access to affordable housing, food security, clean and reliable transportation and accessible health care, including mental health.”

Sheila “For the People” Nezhad, the grassroots Minneapolis mayoral candidate, described herself as the “top challenger” to incumbent Jacob Frey in the upcoming election.

Although she did not earn the 60% of votes required for a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) endorsement, she was the clear leader of the caucus with 53% of votes. Mayor Frey came in second with 40% of votes. The Stonewall DFL, the Minnesota Young DFL and the Twin Cities Mutual Aid Project have all endorsed Nezhad.

Nezhad, a queer woman of color, has a background in activism and if elected, plans to support renters, emphasize crime prevention over policing and make it easier for Minneapolis residents to be involved with city government.

“She’s not someone who has been in politics her whole life and made being mayor her goal,” said Elham Mohamud, Nezhad’s communications manager. “She is an activist who, after last summer, decided, ‘I need to do something.’”

Nezhad’s policies

Nezhad said she wants to make sure Minneapolis citizens are able to participate and understand city government. One way she plans to do this is by paying community advisory committee members, such as people on the pedestrian advisory committee.

“The city has all these wonderful advisory councils … There are over 700 volunteers right now,” Nezhad said. “What happens when those positions are volunteer, unpaid positions is only the people who can afford to be there … so working class people and parents really get left out.”

Along with that, she wants to better the city’s communications so that residents are knowledgeable about what is happening in city government. Nezhad’s goal is to allow the community to decide on government budgeting by introducing a $10 million participatory budget. Minneapolis citizens would decide how to spend it, rather than the government.

“People will have a direct say in being able to advocate for what they want to see funded in the city government,” said Janet Nguyen, campaign fellow and University of Minnesota graduate.

Focusing on a preventive approach to crime is one of Nezhad’s objectives.

“When we talk about safety, we need to talk about the things that keep us safe, which are housing, youth programs, education and mental health care,” she said.

Nezhad spent several years working as a policy organizer for Reclaim the Block, a local group that aims to move the police budget to other safety measures. During her time there, she helped create the Office of Violence Prevention.

This fall, ballots will contain a charter amendment dubbed Yes 4 Minneapolis that Nezhad helped author. If voted in, it would take the police department out of the city charter and replace it with a Department of Public Safety.

Nezhad said she has been a renter for 12 years and believes in renter protections. She supports the tenant’s opportunity to purchase, which means renters have the first chance to purchase their house when it is up for sale. She also supports the upcoming rent control bills and preventive programs that keep people from living on the streets.

“I know what it’s like to be displaced by increasing rents. I know what it’s like to have bad landlords,” Nezhad said. “That’s why we also fight for a fully funded tenant protection board.”

Nezhad has an uphill battle to defeat incumbent Frey, but if the DFL caucus results mean anything, it is that she has a real chance to win.

“I feel very confident that she is not only equipped to be able to serve in office, but she holds
all these genuine experiences with the community,” Nguyen said. “I really, really believe in the fact that she will carry those voices with her.”

A month before the Stonewall riots in New York City, “The Homosexual* Revolution” started in Minneapolis.

It began as an informal class, titled the “Homosexual Revolution,” at a coffee shop in May of 1969. Koreen Phelps and Stephen Irhig talked about “homosexuals’” role in the sexual revolution and used the class to connect with gay people in their community. 

“Because of their vulnerability, Irhig and Miss Phelps have asked other homosexuals to band together,” the Minnesota Daily reported on June 6, 1969. “If someone loses his job because an employer finds out his sex preferences, the group will picket the business. If somebody is arrested for his activities, we will protest.”

It quickly transformed from a class to an official University of Minnesota student group in the fall of 1969, titled FREE (Fight Repression of Erotic Expression). 

“This group that they created was created out of love and compassion,” said Noah Barth, public historian and creator of the documentary “FREE You: Minnesota’s Fight for Gay Liberation.”

FREE was short-lived, as it disbanded by the mid-1970s, but it was deeply influential, according to Barth. Barth said the group sparked the LGBTQ+ rights movement in Minneapolis.

“[FREE] was part of a larger movement for LGBTQ that emerged,” said Rachel Mattson, curator of the Tretter Collection for GLBT Studies. 

The fight around employment discrimination

In 1970, Michael McConnell and FREE president Jack Baker publicly applied for a marriage license in Hennepin County, but were denied. Before attempting to get married, McConnell had been offered a job at the St. Paul campus, but after the Board of Regents found out that McConnell was gay, they took the job offer back.

FREE wanted to do more than protest hiring discrimination 一 the group aimed to create change within the University, as well. In 1970, they sent out letters to several large corporations asking if they’d hire a “homosexual” person. Honeywell said they would not knowingly hire someone who was gay.

FREE then began lobbying the University to bar not only Honeywell from recruiting students, but any organization that discriminated against “homosexual” people. In 1971, the University announced that they would bar companies from recruiting on campus if they would deny a student a job based on factors other than their academics. 

Twenty years later, Minnesota became the first state to outlaw discrimination based on gender or sexuality in 1993. 

“FREE has this lineage of very tangible activism that catapults the state into its LGBTQ progressivism,” Barth said.

FREE’s impact on today

Despite decades of activism, LGBTQ people still face many barriers. 

“I don’t think [FREE’s goal] has been accomplished,” Mattson said. 

There’s more work to be done, but Minneapolis has come far since 1969. There’s a well-known Pride festival, many LGBTQ people feel safe to publicly express affection toward their partners  throughout various parts of the city and younger people are more comfortable with gender-neutral pronouns.

What began as two gay friends searching for a community developed into a group that would influence LGBTQ activists for years to come.

“The difference between a gay person and a hip gay person is self-acceptance. A hip person is not ashamed of what he is nor does he see himself as sick,” FREE founder Ihrig told the Minnesota Daily in 1969.

*The Minnesota Daily has chosen to use the word “homosexual” in some places throughout this article to authentically represent how the original activists in FREE described themselves.

Author’s note: FREE has a lively history and this article barely scratched the surface. If you want to learn more, check out Noah Barth’s documentary, Bruce Johansen’s article, or contact Rachel Mattson and visit the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter GLBT Archives.

On July 1, Minneapolis will raise the minimum wage for businesses as part of an effort to balance out the cost of living and minimum wages. It could mean price increases for businesses and more money for employees to spend.

Minimum wage for big businesses will rise from $13.25 to $14.25 an hour and $11.75 to $12.50 an hour for small businesses.

“Minimum wage has increased every July since 2018. This is the fifth increase in an overall incremental march to $15,” said Brian Walsh, Minneapolis director of labor standards and contract compliance.

Big businesses will reach $15 an hour next summer and small businesses will be the same by 2024. A big business is broadly defined as an employer with more than 100 employees. After companies reach $15 an hour, minimum wage will increase yearly to match inflation.

“It’s a small but important increase to prevent minimum wage from lowering value,” Walsh said.

Compared to the rest of the country, Minneapolis has a high minimum wage. Minneapolis’ minimum wage is nearly double the federal rate of $7.25 an hour and $4 more than the Minnesota state minimum wage.

Walsh said he sees increasing the minimum wage as an economic investment. “It’s rooted in the realization that low wage workers are also consumers,” he said. According to Walsh, by raising wages, it gives all consumers more opportunities to spend money and support the local economy.

Minneapolis City Council voted to raise the minimum wage in 2017 to make it easier for people across the city to afford to live, and also to put money back into the economy.

“It’s good, cost of living is rising, rent is rising. It’s really important, especially for student workers,” said University of Minnesota student Lexi Sather.

Although wage raises directly and positively impact employees, it can leave small businesses struggling to pay workers and run a business.

“A lot of people just don’t see or recognize how difficult it can be running a small business, and a small restaurant at that,” said Sherman Ho, owner of Bánh Appetit. “When stuff like [wages] goes up by such a big margin in such a short amount of time, they can really squeeze small restaurants in that sense.”

Brian Van Dyke, general manager and co-owner of D.P. Dough, said he will need to raise prices across the board in order to make a profit.

“Every year, the minimum wage goes up $1, it costs us an extra $40,000,” he said. “With minimum wage being where it’s at right now, it has hampered my ability to develop [employee pay] raises.”

He does not know how much food prices will go up, but expects to increase the price of calzones by 50 cents and delivery by $1. Van Dyke said rising food costs also contributed to the expected price increase.

If an employer does not increase a worker’s wage to match the current Minneapolis minimum wage, Walsh said to contact the department of labor standards enforcement or go to their website.

After Minneapolis lifted the mask mandate for both indoors and outdoors in early June, Dinkytown restaurants are reacting with a mix of emotions.

Although businesses can still require customers to wear masks, as they are a private entity, the majority of Dinkytown restaurants have completely dropped them. Employees are both excited to enter back into the maskless world and afraid of what may come.

Currently, no one is required to wear a face mask in public. Minnesota lifted the mask mandate and indoor dining restrictions due to high vaccine rates among adults and low COVID-19 infection rates. Shortly afterwards, Minneapolis rescinded mask requirements as well.

Several restaurants have kept their dining rooms roped off, despite the lifted restrictions. Camdi, Bánh Appetit and JJ’s Poké Bowl currently offer takeout only and do not plan to change that in the near future. Mesa Pizza keeps their table numbers limited and does not allow dine-in on evenings and weekends.

Bánh Appetit owner Sherman Ho said he was waiting for school to start up in the fall to reopen fully. “I want to give it more time,” he said, including that he would like to see better vaccination rates before putting tables out.

Gray’s, previously known as Loring Bar and Restaurant, started hosting salsa dancing every weekend.

“It’s a respectful crowd and I’ve had no issues with salsa dancing,” said Lynn Nyman, owner and chief manager of Gray’s.

Nyman said that she is not sure if there has been an increase in customers since the end of the mask mandate.

“It coincided with school being out, there’s been intense heat and salsa is bringing in more people,” she said.

Walking into Bánh Appetit, the restaurant had a plastic barrier separating the cashier from customers, but most employees were maskless. They appeared at ease and comfortable working around each other.

Ho said that it is optional for employees to wear masks, and most do not because they are fully vaccinated. Several employees across Dinkytown held the same sentiment that being vaccinated made them feel safe enough to be maskless.

Not everyone feels that way. Monster Williams, the general manager at Mesa Pizza, said that he does not feel safe serving people without masks.

“I’d feel safe if we reached herd immunity, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet,” he said.

It was clear that sentiment stretched across Dinkytown. In multiple restaurants that dropped their mask mandate, employees still took orders, made food and talked to customers fully masked.

Customers as well seem hesitant to drop the mask. Williams said that despite no mask requirements, about 50% of customers still come in masked.

The Minnesota Daily Board of Directors has chosen Niamh Coomey to serve as the new editor-in-chief (EIC) and Avni Tripathi for business operations officer (BOO). They will hold these roles from May 2021 to May 2022.

The EIC and BOO went through a rigorous process of job applications, essay questions and presentations before the Board of Directors made a decision. The EIC oversees all of the editorial decisions, which include the school paper, while the BOO is in charge of the business side of the Daily, including advertising and sales.

Editor-in-chief

Coomey will enter her fourth year as a journalism student this fall. She has been working at the Minnesota Daily since the fall of 2018, when she was a first-year student.

Coomey started on the city desk as a cops and courts reporter. She then switched to the campus activities desk, where she reported on student government, before moving to the campus administration desk, covering staff and faculty. During the 2020-21 school year, she was the campus administration editor.

Before starting at the University of Minnesota, Coomey worked at the Roseville Area High School’s newspaper, the Raider Report, and was promoted to EiC during her senior year of high school.

As the new leader, Coomey hopes to make the Daily more accessible.

“[At the Daily,] we don’t pay a ton, but it is a really big time commitment,” she said. “One thing that I would really like to do is make some of the positions a little more flexible so people can still work at the Daily … but not necessarily have to write two stories a week in order to get paid.”

Coomey also wants to expand the Daily’s social media presence.

“I’m hoping to set up a TikTok manager position,” she said. “Expanding to more platforms that college students use will be helpful for our brand as a paper.”

Daily board member Drew Geraets said in an email that Coomey promised to make the Daily staff represent its community.

“This is a fundamental part of building and maintaining trust with our sources and readers, and will make the Daily an even better place to work,” he said.

Coomey will be working alongside managing editor Hana Ikramuddin.

Business operations officer

In the fall, Tripathi will be a third-year student studying entrepreneurial management with minors in philosophy and product design. She started as a business intern and switched to an account executive in the summer of 2020. She worked as the assistant sales manager during the fall 2020 semester.

Tripathi started in advertising in high school when she began creating ads for a local resort in India. One of her ads was featured in National Geographic.

As BOO, Tripathi hopes to increase Daily hiring and recruitment efforts.

“I want to create another position where we have student recruiters who help us hire people in the business division,” she said. “I want to ensure that incoming students don’t feel disadvantaged because of lack of experience.”

Much like Coomey, Tripathi also wants to create a better social media presence.

“Avni wants to help continue our transition to more digital initiatives,” said Geraets. “Being able to grow our website and social media presence, and develop new digital products, is important to ensure we can support our business and advertising partners in the future.”

Valerian LLC proposed a new mixed-use development on Ninth Street Southeast, titled American Spirit. If approved by the city, it will include over 100 new apartments, several renovated factories, a coffee shop and multiple futsal fields.

American Spirit would consist of a 90-unit apartment complex and 22 units on top of the factories. The entire development would consist of studio to two-bedroom apartments, and rent would most likely range in price from $1,000 to $1,500 a month, developer Troy Mathwig said.

If the city approves the project this spring, building of the apartments could begin by the end of 2021, said DJR Architecture architect Dean Dovolis.

Several manufacturing and indoor sports buildings have been renovated, as they fit within city guidelines, while the rest of the project awaits approval.

Two companies have already moved into the renovated building space, with several more to come. Mosquito, a store display manufacturer, is up and running, while Ninth Street Soccer and Coffee, has an indoor futsal court open. Its coffee shop is set to open this year. Futsal is a sport similar to soccer.

When the buildings are ready, the futsal company will also make t-shirts, and Circle of Discipline, a spirituality-based community center, will have a space there, Dovolis said. There are plans for another futsal court on top of one of the buildings as well.

American Spirit showcases a shift to mixed-use space in Minneapolis. Historically, Minneapolis has separated industrial, residential and commercial zones, making it difficult to survive without a car since the essentials are spread throughout the city.

The Minneapolis 2040 plan is attempting to create a city where more residents walk, bike and use public transit, and the coming apartment complex fits into that goal.

“[American Spirit] has a very eclectic variety of uses all mushed together,” Dovolis said. “It creates a very active site of the city.”

Currently, Ninth Street is underdeveloped, said Chris Lautenschlager, executive director for the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association. There is no sidewalk on part of the block, the street has several potholes and there are multiple empty lots.

“The Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association has been long interested in an improved public landscape on Ninth Street,” Lautenschlager said. “The whole Ninth Street area really hadn’t seen any major developments until a few years ago.”

There are more plans to put in apartment complexes in the area, including one across the street from American Spirit.

Dovolis said American Spirit would be built modularly, which is a unique type of construction. Rather than building the entire apartment complex up from the ground, DJR would assemble each unit off-site in a factory and then stack them together to create a structure.

“They build the unit, all the furniture, toilets, plumbing, Sheetrock, painting, carpet — all of that is built in a rectangular box,” Dovolis said. Once finished, DJR would send the apartments from the factory in Owatonna, Minnesota, to the Minneapolis construction site.

By building modularly, the weather cannot ruin construction, and building the entire structure takes less time because developers can create the apartment base while building the living areas at the same time. Dovolis said it allows DJR to build higher quality apartments.

“Right now [Ninth Street is] still a goofy area that no one generally knows about, but there’s certainly been a lot of interest over the last four or five years,” Lautenschlager said.

The Minneapolis Planning Commission approved an ordinance last week that would get rid of parking minimums for new developments beginning in late May as an attempt to make the city less car-dependent.

Under the Minneapolis 2040 plan, the city wants to find ways to create a more environmentally friendly city. The ordinance would also reduce the maximum number of parking spaces and adds bedroom limits, gaining mixed responses from Southeast Como homeowners. The ordinance is slated to go before the Minneapolis City Council on May 14.

“We’d like to give incentive for folks to get out of single-occupancy cars and out walking, biking, taking transit in an effort to reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions,” city planner Joe Bernard said. “We know from research that reducing the amount of parking in residential developments reduces housing costs. Having fewer parking spaces removes that incentive to use automobiles.”

Before the Planning Commission passed this ordinance, Minneapolis required one parking space for every two bedrooms.

The ordinance includes a bedroom limit that restricts single-family homes, duplexes and triplexes to nine bedrooms at maximum. Bernard said this is to prevent dorm-style housing from popping up in residential neighborhoods.

Before the ordinance, the city used the parking requirements to control one- to three-unit housing to make sure developers were not building excessively large developments, Bernard said.

This has been a worry for many Southeast Como residents, most recently with the redevelopment of 1203 Talmage Ave. The developer originally planned the building to be a triplex with 15 bedrooms, but developers proposed a reduction to nine bedrooms.

Getting rid of parking minimums does not mean that developers will build apartments without parking spaces. Renters value parking, and while the number of spaces may go down, there will still be options, Bernard said.

“There’s a general sentiment that people need cars right now, and because of that there’s a fear that when you take away regulations, the streets will get choked up with street parking,” said Ben Brummel, president of Southeast Como Improvement Association.

While there are many benefits to shifting to greener modes of transportation, Southeast Como residents do not know if neighborhoods around the University of Minnesota are ready to fully eliminate parking minimums.

“The feedback that I was getting, from myself and others, was that we’re not quite ready in Como to go without parking restrictions,” Brummel said. “That’s coming from a few different reasons, one being food sources.”

The closest grocery stores to the neighborhood are the Dinkytown Target and the Quarry Cub Foods. Due to the smaller selection of groceries at Target, it can be difficult to shop there, and there is no direct bus route from Southeast Como to the Quarry shopping center.

Ward 3 City Council member Steve Fletcher said that the city is working on the E Line, a bus route that would run throughout the city. Fletcher said the E Line would directly connect Marcy-Holmes to Lunds and Byerlys, Whole Foods and Target.

Linking the area around campus to more grocery stores would make sure “everybody has access to fresh food,” he said.

Fletcher added that developer CA Ventures is looking into putting a grocery store in the Dinkytown development at 4th Street and 15th Avenue, where the old McDonald’s sits.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated that point at which the parking ordinance was in the city’s approval process. While the Minneapolis Planning Commission has approved the ordinance, the City Council is slated to vote on it on May 14.

As Derek Chauvin’s court trial starts, Black justice coalitions and community groups are preparing to protest.

Knowing that students will likely be part of the activism, the Minnesota Daily spoke to some experts and community groups to help you best prepare for protesting safely and conscientiously.

Before the protest

Find a protest: Start on Facebook, said Ben Pettee, an intern at Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The two biggest groups to look at are Reclaim the Block and Black Visions, but also check out CAIR, Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar, local Black Lives Matter groups and the Anti-War Committee, just to name a few. These groups often make Facebook events with details like dates and locations.

Johnathon McClellan, president of the Minnesota Justice Coalition, also said to start showing up to protests and start talking to people.

“If you ask, ‘Where is the next protest?’ people will tell you, ‘We’ll let you know,’ or, ‘We’ll be at this place at this time,’” McClellan said.

What to bring and what to do:

• Fully charged phone
• Comfortable running shoes
• Multiple masks
• Water
• First aid kit
• Ballistic-rated goggles
• Snacks

Zaynab Mohamed, the CAIR community advocacy manager, said she likes having a first aid kit and snacks because you never know what will happen.

“Moral of the story: Be prepared,” Pettee said.

Make sure to share your location with someone and tell someone that you’re going to protest. Designate someone to bail you out of jail if needed, and either memorize or write their phone number somewhere on your body.

Also, don’t forget to layer clothing.

At the protest

If you are a white person: Mohamed said to remember that this is not your movement and to not make it about yourself.

“Listen to the stories and let people of color speak and share their truth,” McClellan said.

You don’t need to understand or agree with everything, but give Black people the space they need, Mohamed said.

Mohamed also said white people should use their bodies to form human barriers or act as shields, if necessary. For example, if police are harassing a Black person, she said it would be smart to help de-escalate the situation until the police stop.

If it gets violent: Protesters are almost always peaceful, but McClellan said police officers may not be. Organizations set out with the intent of a peaceful demonstration, but that can go awry when white supremacists and police officers in military gear begin antagonizing protesters, he said. Don’t leave because police officers are there, but be mindful of where they are and what they are doing.

If tear gas or rubber bullets are shot: leave. There isn’t always a clear path out, so be creative if you can, Pettee said. When you arrive, check out the area and be aware of possible escape routes. Be mindful of kettling — when police officers surround protesters.

If tear gas gets in your eye, water, not milk, is best to clean it out, Pettee added. If you or someone else is shot with a rubber bullet, first move to a secure location and then inspect the wound to make sure it’s not serious.

Also note that if you are wearing nonballistic-rated goggles to protect your eyes from tear gas, take them off if rubber bullets are fired. If a rubber bullet hits the goggles, they can shatter and get plastic in your eye. At least three people lost function of an eye during the protests in Minnesota over the summer because of police shooting less-lethal rounds at their faces. One reporter was blinded in one eye after a foam bullet broke her goggles.

Key point: Be careful.

If you are arrested: Act calm, and follow the police’s orders, McClellan said. Do not say anything because it can and will be held against you in court. “The time to dispute things and argue with the police are in a courtroom,” he added.

When big white vans or other large vehicles, like buses, start showing up, be aware that police may be planning a mass arrest, Pettee said. Once in jail, call someone that can come pick you up or bail you out of jail.

Remember that protesting is your First Amendment right and that organizations will always want your support. Protesters organize with the full intention of staying peaceful — but that is not always how it works out, Mohamed said.

“We want to encourage people to come out and protest and exercise our First Amendment right. But we also want to encourage people to be lawful about it. And to be engaged,” McClellan said. “Keep your eyes open, and be conscious about the reality of what it is that [the police are] doing.”