- So much of working towards racial equity is around telling our own stories.

Hopefully art and the work of poetry and visual art can help lift up those narratives that are often in invisibilized.

- There are stories in this map.

Covenants and redlining are a history of policy and statistics, but also a story of people and their families.

When we talk about housing, we are not just talking about buildings, we are also talking about the very intimate idea of home.

So today we are sitting down to hear real stories about the power of Black homeownership and see the faces within the maps of Jim Crow of the North.

(solemn music) An artist activist group in Minneapolis set out to use creativity and the arts to raise awareness about racist history lurking within their property records.

(soft music) In addition to putting lawn signs in front of the houses with covenants, Free the Deeds also collected stories of Black homeownership and turned them into works of writing, and painting, and art to share with the community.

Throughout history, art has been a force of progress.

From the pageantry of the suffragettes, to the plywood across the city after the murder of George Floyd, art connects us emotionally with the realities of the causes.

- Arts are integral in every step of this process, and we hope that the artwork of this team of artists opens up people's whole system to letting this history in and sitting with it in ways that were both very real, but very hopeful.

- [Acoma] Storyteller and artist Hawona Sullivan Janzen created the written works and let us come into the homes of these families with her as she collected the oral histories, starting with Margie and Paris and their family's migration from the segregated south to North Minneapolis.

- This story actually starts with you, Miss Margie, coming to Minnesota as a small child, right?

- Well, Jasper, Alabama is where we're from.

My Aunt Sis, that's what we call her, she had always stated that when she started having kids she'd never raise 'em in the South.

- And that was because of... - [Miss Margie] The racism, what they went through.

My grandmother, she had her last four children out in the field.

- [Hawona] Oh, my gosh.

- She'd have them.

They'd take her home.

She'd be back in the field by afternoon.

- That's not the life.

- No, ain't gonna, ain't gonna do it.

- And what year was this, when they first came?

- Had to have been in '42.

- [Acoma] When Margie's family moved to the North Side in the 1940s there was already a vibrant, diverse community, but it looked different from the makeup of the North Side today.

In the early part of the 20th century North Minneapolis became a hub for immigrants, especially from Eastern Europe, many of them Jewish.

Following World War I, partially due to restrictive covenants in other areas of Minneapolis, Black families were relocating to the redlined Northside.

Margie's family joined a vibrant Black community and saw things like the Phyllis Wheatley House, which opened in the early part of the 20th century with the aim of providing services to Black children and families.

This organization was a key feature in building a network of mutual aid where community members took on the responsibility to care for one another.

(bright music) - So cool to be able to go down every block, and if there was a block you didn't have a family member you had friends, because everybody with the Northside, you knew everyone.

The African American community was small enough, but it was tight.

It was close-knit.

And so whatever block you were on, if you needed to get a drink of water or go in the house to get something then there was always someone there.

One of my granddad's brothers had apple trees, and my grandmother would send us to go pick the apples from the apple tree so that she could make jelly and preserves.

- [Acoma] The economic impact of redlining and covenants devalued the housing on the Northside, and even though those racist policies are no longer legal the impact on housing value remains.

- When you talked about what my home is worth, I think it's still on the low side, and that's because we're in North Minneapolis.

- Yes, absolutely.

- So my family has made the choice, and the choice is it's more important to have a quality of life versus the quantity.

And so my family over the years, they have made the choice.

I look at my younger cousins who are now buying their homes and choosing to still do it right in North Minneapolis.

- Going south was never thought of.

They didn't want you over there in the first place, and we never wanted to go anywhere where we weren't wanted.

- [Hawona] So this always felt like home.

- [Miss Margie] Northside was always it.

- Margie's thoughts about South Minneapolis were not unfounded.

In stark contrast to the Northside, South Minneapolis is riddled with racial covenants put in place in the early 20th century.

Hawona gathered a different story about South Minneapolis, but ultimately still one of community.

Lewis and Elizabeth Moore shared their journey of standing up to realtor steering and making a home for themselves across the covenant line.

(chill music) - You knew that real estate agents were specifically going out of their way not to show Black people houses beyond 38th.

- We did have a realtor and he was very cautious as to the places he showed us.

When Louie was on his bike riding around he would see places and he would say, "Oh, that place is for sale," or, "That place is for sale."

And he would tell the guy that we wanted to look at such-and-such-a-place.

And they were farther out than 38th, which he had a problem with.

And then the neighbors had a problem with him showing us the house.

- But never came out and said why?

- No, no.

- And never tried to interest us in anything beyond 38th.

He was very uncomfortable with presenting it because we might be interested.

- The realtors were heavily engaged in steering, and redlining, keeping Black people in Black spaces and keeping white people in white spaces.

- [Acoma] Steering is when real estate agents influence their clients to only look at housing in certain areas based on their race.

- It was legal then.

They weren't doing anything illegal by steering because we had a structure, right?

We had a system and it was all baked right in.

- A part of the American way of life.

- [Acoma] While this practice was technically made illegal in the Fair Housing Act of 1968, it is still in use today.

(upbeat music) - [Louis] We met the two little old ladies that owned the house, and we had our daughter with us and they just loved her.

"Oh, she's so cute."

They'd pick her up and carry her around the house.

- Now I wanna be clear, these were white people, right?

- Yeah, two white ones.

- Oh, yes.

- They were sisters.

- The agent did everything he could, I think, to discourage us, or to have us move someplace else, except then the ladies- - They stepped up to the plate.

- They stepped in and they said, "If you don't sell this house to those young people we are going to get a different agent and be done with you."

- Really?

So they advocated for you.

- Yes, they did.

And they said, "Yep, we want young people, and we want people that have children so that they can enjoy the house."

- [Acoma] The Moores found their perfect home to raise their three kids.

They spoke of the stability homeownership offered to them and their young family.

But their struggle with their covenanted neighborhood did not end after they purchased their home.

- For a couple of months, I would have the police follow me home.

I would be coming home from work and I'd come down the alley and there'd be a squad car behind me and I'd pull in the driveway back here, and they'd pull up behind me, and get out, and wanna know where I'm going.

And I said, "I'm home."

They'd look at me like, "Well, where's your driver's license?"

I'd give 'em the driver's license.

They'd look at the address, of course, which matched this house.

And that probably took place half dozen times over the first- - Half dozen times?

- At least over the first year, year and a half.

And I think what was happening was some of the neighbors were calling the police 'cause they saw Black people in the neighborhood.

I didn't know any of this was going on probably until four or five years after we were here, and one of the neighbors who finally felt comfortable with us was kind of telling us these stories.

- A lot has changed, and a lot of time has gone by.

Our children grew up here, but I think they also helped build the neighborhood itself.

They're out there running around.

People wanna know, "Okay, who are those little kids?"

You feel safe with them being there, 'cause every, everybody starts talking to them, starts talking to you.

I think all you have to do is get to know people.

People are all the same.

And if you get to know them and they figure you're not going to cause them problems, and you're not going to be a problem, then you're okay with them kind of thing.

(soothing music) - [Acoma] The story that emerged from these families reflects diverse experiences of life within the same city.

One family's commitment to the redlined Northside and the creation of a close-knit community, and another's experience to break into a white neighborhood and bring integration and understanding to their block.

Mike Hoyt captures these stories in bright, eye-catching, large scale portraits, inviting folks to think about Black light and life here in Minneapolis.

- There's something that happens in portrait work where the portrait artist is pulling out and reflecting back and acting as this mirror to people's beauty, and what is so incredible about Mike's work is you see it in the colors and designs and the vibrancy of it.

You feel the life force of these two families.

- It's so unfair for people who are renting, and they don't have that equity that they're building up.

- With George Floyd's death, we didn't know how we could participate in the social justice movement.

- There's 200 houses that are perpetually affordable in Minneapolis.