- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle music) - "R-Town," the show about Rochester learns about the history of racial convenance and redlining in the city and we catch up with a local artist who just finished working on a historical street mural in downtown Rochester.

We also check out The Garden Skatepark and Coffee Shop and we visit an innovative home committed to sustainability.

All that and more coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(upbeat music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

We are joined today by local artist, Tierney Parker, here to tell us more about her work, an historic new street mural she designed in downtown Rochester.

Welcome to "R-Town," Tierney.

- Hello.

- So excited to have you here.

- [Tierney] Thank you for having me.

- Can you tell us a little bit about you and your work as an artist?

- Yeah, so I just recently moved back to Minnesota.

I've been back now for two years.

I'm a self-taught artist.

I like to consider myself a mixed media artist.

I use a little bit of everything.

Fabric, clay, I'm really into acrylic painting right now, though, as primarily what I've been doing.

But I really just paint what I feel.

My biggest goal, I guess, with my art is to make people have like uncomfy conversations.

I like when people see my art and they're like, hmm, why?

Let's talk about it.

That's like my favorite thing.

That's really, really my goal.

And it's just been fun.

It's been fun getting to create and do what I like to do and not necessarily having timelines or borders that I have to stay within.

It's just been me unapologetically and that's been really, really fun.

- Wonderful.

- Yeah.

- Last year, you talked about wanting your work to be a space for some of some of those conversations.

Last year you had an exhibition right here at 125 Live.

Can you tell us a little bit about that event and the impact that it had on you as an artist and as a person?

- It was amazing.

There were three or four other artists.

And, again, it was no like requirements, no we needed to be this or that and I really just got to do what I wanted and show what I wanted and we had the artists reception here and it was nerve wracking at first, I was so nervous about what the public's perception about some very vulnerable pieces that I made were gonna be and instead I was like pleasantly surprised.

It was so like welcoming and people were talking about it.

We got to sit in front of our piece and I sat in front of one that was a little controversial at first.

It had some tough topics about growing up biracial and my personal feelings and opinions about it and that was the one that everybody wanted to talk about and had questions and we engaged and it was was I cried, some of them cried, my kids got to come and see it, my husband was there.

It was very, very beautiful and I'm so grateful for the opportunity.

It was amazing.

- Sounds like a very powerful and also healing experience on both ends of that.

- Yes.

- You, I'm very excited about this, but you just finished up a street mural as part of a larger mural arts program in the city.

What inspired your design and what does the Avalon's history mean to you?

- So what inspired my design was digging into the history of the Avalon, Mr. Manning, and all of the amazing people that stayed there in the sense of community that it brought to people in that time.

It was put into the Green Book in 1948.

It opened a couple of years before that.

I'm not very good on my timelines, specifically, but he is what I feel like inspired so much hope in a time that a lot of people felt hopeless and so I think that we can kind of relate to that still now some of us in just our daily lives and the things that are going on.

And so when Threshold gave me the opportunity to do the mural in front of the Avalon, I immediately wanted to share that hope and so that's why I chose the color schemes that I did to represent the Green Book and to me it also represents growth and change and that's what I think us as a community are doing and working towards within art and business and everything we do here in Rochester as a community and I just hope that everybody enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it.

It was so, so fun.

I think the Avalon is such an amazing, amazing space.

I can't wait to see what it can turn into later.

I think it's something that everybody should dig a little deeper into.

If you don't know about it, ask somebody, let's talk about it.

- Well, thank you so much for sharing that.

It's such a powerful space, historically, being one of the first black-owned business- - Yes.

- Black spaces in the city.

- And your role in being able to preserve that.

As we are wrapping up here, how do you think that the community can continue to support artists, specifically artists of color?

- I think listening.

Honestly, a lot of people can't get past their own opinions about things and if they just actually took the time to listen and genuinely hear what people of color and different ethnicities and backgrounds are saying and then give them the opportunity to share their stories, it would be amazing and beautiful and we can all learn from each other.

So we just all have to come from a place of understanding and hopefully that will bring us more together in art and as a community, yeah.

- Wonderful, thank you so much, Tierney and we look forward to following more of your work in this.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We visit a home designed around environmental sustainability.

We also learn about the history of redlining and racial convenance in the city.

But up first, we hop on a skateboard, as we check out a skatepark and coffee shop in this week's R-Culture segment.

(rock music) - My name is Laura Kramer and I am the owner of the Garden Skatepark and Coffee Shop.

This is an indoor skatepark, as you can see and we also have a coffee shop and skate shop.

(upbeat music) My son has been skating, I think, for three, four years and it all started, I was taking him to the Silver Lake Skatepark and watching him skate there, seeing all the other skaters and then realizing that we live in Minnesota and there's really nowhere to go to skate as soon as the weather hits, so my husband and I started concocting a plan to open and indoor skatepark.

(upbeat music) I'm personally passionate about health, so that's definitely fed in to what did in the coffee shop over there.

I've done my best to pick healthier options for food.

All of our coffee is organic.

All the syrups are organic.

Our smoothies are as well.

And then just the food options in general and our drinks, I've just really done my best to keep it clean.

The kids come in all the time and they prefer to have healthier options.

We've had some concerts here.

We've hosted a competition.

You can have your business meetings over in the coffee shop.

We have birthday parties.

(gentle music) Our park is open to all ages.

We have, I think, a skater as young as four taking lessons.

We hosted a reunion party for the YMCA skate team.

They skated back in the 70s, so three of them are still skating at 60 years old.

So, really, it is a park for all ages.

(rock music) We hosted a mural competition when we were opening and then the public got to pick what went up on the walls and then we had some local artists come and do the design and put up all of our murals.

Our ramp designer, his name is Trog, that's his nickname.

He really did design that place so that it's good for all ages.

You can come in as a beginning and feel comfortable in here.

We have a skate team that also does lessons.

You can skate, rollerblade, scooter.

You can just run and slide down the ramps.

We have some morning sessions for the little kids after you drop your big kids off at school.

The little kindergarten and under ages can come in and they'll just run around all the ramps and slide down and just have a good time.

It's really fun to just slide on the ramps.

I've done it myself.

(rock music) The skate community is a really tight knit community, so as soon as you hear about a skatepark opening up, they kind of automatically know everywhere.

Drawing in the public is a different thing, but the skate community, they knew instantly.

We tried to involve them from the very beginning.

When this was a shell, we invited the skaters of Rochester to just come in and take a look to see what was gonna happen and then to get their input on things because they're the ones that we're catering to.

We want this to be a place for the skaters.

I love it.

They're the best people I've ever met.

I'm so happy that we've done this.

The people that come in here are the best customers.

They're just happy that they have a place.

I've never met anyone like them.

They are part of a team.

They wanna help.

They're just wonderful people.

So, yeah, I'm really happy that we did this.

- [Announcer] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ#RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

I'm excited for our guest today.

I've actually collaborated with her before and we are gonna talk about her amazing company, Dina Abo Sheasha, welcome.

- Thank you so much for having me, Danielle.

- Share a little bit about your company, Curve.

- Yeah, so Curve is a marketing agency.

We provide tailored solutions to businesses.

We work with many variety of industries in healthcare, education, non-profit organizations and many more to help them connect with their target audience and really, you know, provide a service whether it is social media management, branding, website support for these clients.

- And that's perfect because the collaboration I mentioned was the Rochester Downtown Awareness Campaign to get people downtown, you know, during the pandemic in a safe way and then after the pandemic, my daughter was included in that campaign.

So share a little bit about some of the clients you helped.

- And every client is a different journey and different needs and different target audience.

We worked with Rochester Montessori School, we did their website.

"Rochester Woman" magazine, we're still working with these.

It's a relationship with these companies.

It's a relationship that keeps going and they come back for even more services, like branding.

So "Rochester Woman" magazine, Comp Care, healthcare organizations, so really the reason why I started this company is I found out that there is a need in the market.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Where, you know, if you are a chef, for example, you might be really good at what you do, like providing the product, but you need guidance with the marketing needs and this is where we come in.

We analyze the market, we analyze that we understand the target audience, what appeals to them so we can create messaging and visuals that really connect with them, so they can buy.

- And that's a perfect example of this ongoing relationship that you do have like "Rochester Woman" magazine, they just opened up a department around parenting and I know that much of your content and creation is incredible.

Can you share a little bit more about that?

- Yes, the new department we're so excited about, parenting, is a really, and personal to me as a mom of three.

We manage their website.

Acasia is the one who really creates the content for everything and they provide it to them.

We make those visuals, like they have a vision and we make it into reality for them in the website.

- That's perfect.

Where can people find out more information and what kind of services are offered?

- Yes, the best way to find us is our website and the services is, you know, it's actually sometimes I sit down with the clients and I understand what they need, what their goal is and I provide the services, the solutions.

So social media management, website design, advertising, you know, marketing campaigns.

Yeah, that's what we provide.

- Thank you so much, Dina.

We appreciate you being on the show.

- Yeah, you're welcome.

- This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Hello again, this is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Rundown.

Now last week, I said it was our last episode of the season.

I'm sitting here, so maybe that wasn't the case.

That said, it's like my parents taught me when I was young, measure once, cut twice, something like that.

I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention but we've got a lot more to talk about with what's going on in Rochester.

Last week I mentioned you might want to get your tickets early for Mayo High School's production of their annual musical.

And what's really cool, it actually sold out before it even opened up this time, so great job Rochester coming out and supporting our youth.

And there's a lot of things you can come out and support in the community.

High school sports are going on.

It's gonna be basketball and hockey season over the winter.

There's a lot of arts going on in the community.

Any time you show up and support kids in our community, you're building a strong community, you're showing these kids support and they really do appreciate it.

Also, we have 100 plus parks that are available all winter long.

We don't close down for the winter and that's really cool.

There are options for biking, hiking, walking, snowshoeing, and even cross country skiing in our parks.

It's a fantastic time to get out and enjoy our parks in the winter.

There's nothing quite as beautiful as fresh fallen snow in the park as you go through on a quiet morning.

Now those of you who watched last week, we ran through a lot of different items that we covered, but there's more things that you can do on a regular basis and today I really wanna highlight some of the live music opportunities that are going on to support our local artists.

The Chateau Theatre, Rochester Civic Theatre and Mayo Civic Center are well known for putting on a number of productions, but beyond that there's live music every Saturday at The Well downtown.

Every single Wednesday through Saturday evening, the Redwood Room has music going on.

Thesis has Wednesday residencies and it's a fantastic place to hear music.

Little Thistle has Sunday matinee concerts.

125 Live does morning concerts on Friday morning.

Forager even does music almost every Tuesday through Saturday and sometimes jazz jams on Sunday.

And Kinney Creek is even doing music two times a month.

This is a fantastic opportunity to come out, support one of our local venues, support local musicians and help get through this winter together.

This has been Michael Wojcik.

Have a wonderful holiday season.

(slow guitar music) - Hi, this is Danielle with R-Town Walkabout.

We're at Northwest Rochester checking out some solar panels and sustainability.

Hi, Ivan.

- Hi.

- Hi, I'm so excited to learn a little bit more about the solar panels, the efficiency gains from that.

Can you share a little bit about why you got started, why it's so important?

Right, well, I mean, my wife and I, we have several children and grandchildren, so this is something that's important to us.

In addition, when we built this house, we were keeping in mind that, you know, this is gonna be our retirement home.

So we wanted to have low energy bills so that we weren't priced out of home eventually.

We wanted something that's comfortable.

We have 4.7 kilowatts of solar up on the roof.

We use passive solar gain, so our windows here are made to let the heat, the sun in in the wintertime and then we have concrete floors to take up that heat.

And if it's sunny outside, we don't have to heat our house during the day.

- It just retains it.

- Yep.

- That's incredible.

- Yeah, it'll get 78 degrees in there- - And it's 20 degrees outside.

- Right, minus 20.

- [Danielle] Minus 20.

You talked about how you put the solar panels up and you needed to build an overhang and it's a green roof.

- We need something to block the sun in the summertime, otherwise we get all this excess heat, so we don't want that.

So you wanna build an overhang that's the right size so that it blocks out sun in the summertime, but it allows it in the wintertime when we want it.

So we wanted to do something that was a little fun, so we put a green roof up on top of there.

It's how we built the house.

We have 12-inch thick walls.

It's all electric.

We wanna use it as kind of a, I guess, a showcase.

- Yeah.

- And hopefully inspire more people to invest in these technologies.

- That's really incredible, Ivan.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout.

(upbeat music) - Redlining and racial convenance are two of the practices that enforce racial segregation in the United States, both within and outside states that had Jim Crow laws.

The Education Committee of the Rochester Branch of the NAACP coordinated a team of volunteers who researched Olmsted County property records.

Here to tell us more about the local findings and history here in Rochester is Phil Wheeler, who's been working closely on this project.

Welcome to "R-Town," Phil.

- Thank you.

- So before we start talking a little bit more about our local history, I'd love to hear a little bit from you about how we define racial convenance and redlining.

- Well, redlining is a practice that limited mortgage availability, especially conventional mortgage availability in areas that were considered to be high risk and every area that had any population of people of color was considered to be a high risk.

Racial convenance were a private practice, a codicil on a deed that said you cannot, this property cannot be occupied, rented, owned or otherwise by different people, different classes of people.

The first one in the United States was in the 1840s in Massachusetts and it prohibited occupancy by people, African Americans and Irish.

California had a bunch of racial convenance related to people of Chinese or Asian birth.

They came to Minnesota, apparently as far as we know, the first one was in 1910 in Minneapolis.

The first one in Rochester was in 1915.

Can you walk us a little bit through that specific history of racial convenance here in Rochester?

- Well, again, the first one was in 1915.

It was located on Plymouth Avenue Southeast, south of Center Street.

That was applied at the time of the subdivision plat approval.

We have at least had racial convenance on plats through the 1940s.

They became illegal in Minnesota in 1953, so we haven't found any more recent than that.

So when they were imposed at the time of subdivision plat, they were accompanied by advertising.

We had a group of high school students working through Christopher Carter, one of the volunteers on the mapping project to identify ads that advertised racial convenance as being a desirable feature.

We also had another category called retroactive.

We call them retroactive where properties that were subdivided in the 1850s, sometimes in the 1830s, for example, large areas of the old neighborhoods had racial convenance applied to them by, in one case, 90 plus people signing, agreeing to a racial convenance.

- A petition of some kind.

- So, all told, we have 1,024 properties that we've identified so far.

The ones we haven't identified may be equally as many, as numerous, but they're much harder to find because they're not at the plat level.

Rochester is not the only place that had them, still has them.

The other community that we found, there plats in three subdivisions is Oranoco.

All three of the ones of the subdivisions that, what used to be called Lake Shady, you know, the marshy spot formerly known as Lake Shady had racial convenance.

- Now we know that things like redlining and racial convenance have a lasting impact and a lasting legacy.

Can you tell us just little bit about, that you mentioned a little bit about how we see that in the wealth gap today and then also, what are some of the current practices that we're seeing in our residential housing that are discriminatory?

- Well, first impact is the wealth gap and the wealth gap has all sorts of implications.

One is student debt is much, much higher among African Americans and other people of color than it is among the white population because there's less generational wealth.

Home ownership is a major source of generational wealth and because it impacts things like education, it also impacts income.

The homeownership gap in Olmsted County is 56%, so roughly 20-some percent of African-Americans own their own home as compared to almost 80% of white citizens here.

And as far as things that perpetuate this, if we don't have, if we continue to have exclusive neighborhoods based on characteristics like lot size and housing costs, then we perpetuate racial discrimination or racial segregation because if we have a wealth gap and an income gap and we have neighborhoods that don't have any houses affordable to that segment of the population, then we've encouraged, we've accommodated racial segregation.

- As we're wrapping up here in the last few seconds, can you tell us how community members can learn more about this project, about their own property if they have questions.

Well, first of all, we are coordinating with the City of Rochester Attorney's Office and they are embarking on a project called Just Deeds and they will with pro bono attorney help and hopefully free recording at the county property records, discharging the racial convenance.

Remains on the books, but add a codicil that says we renounce this.

In connection with that, we've had a sign competition with 53 students at Mayo High School, encouraged by Chris Carter and taught by Tanya Oy, who designed signs to put in people's yard once they discharged their covenant.

We picked the winner last November 4th.

- Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Phil for joining us and for sharing a little bit about this history.

- All right.

And thank you all for joining us today.

I hope you learned as much as I did today about all that's going on in our city and the wonderful people making it happen.

For more great content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #R-Town.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, host of "R-Town," the show about Rochester and I will see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in party by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.