Diversity : Featured Stories

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: At an upcoming potluck and community meeting,  you can get to know a unique arts-based activist group in Saint Paul's Frogtown.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities.Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: The ever-deeper Minnesota-China connection, over breakfast.

The founder and artistic director of Youth Performance Company reflects on what she's learned from the kids she works with about the real source of the "bullying epidemic" in our schools--and why she commissioned a musical theater piece to deal with it.

The Dakota War of 1862, the survival of Native languages, Minneapolis' urban Indian heartland--these were the challenging themes that a group of young Native filmmakers took up this summer at an innovative media institute dedicated to reconnecting them with their roots.

The president and the research/policy director of the local think tank Growth and Justice are "business-oriented progressives." In the face of dogma to the contrary, they dare to assert that there's an unbreakable link between economic fairness and economic growth. And they're bringing that spirit to the most compelling economic issue of all: jobs.

With a new school year approaching, we take a look at three unique programs that show how Minnesota has become a "thought leader" in developing--and funding--positive alternatives for youth.

It's Saint Paul's--and Minnesota's--biggest celebration of African American life, commemorating the Rondo neighborhood, which was largely bulldozed away to make room for Interstate 94 in the 1960s. This year, lensman Bill Kelley followed all the festivities.

On some long-vacant land behind their Central Corridor high school, a group of students and their supporters envision a multi-use greenspace that would be a focal point for the neighborhood--and could be unique in the nation.

In the final Talk-It Hennepin forum on the redevelopment of Hennepin Avenue, experts touched on some touchy subjects, like the purpose of public space, who gets to use it and how, the role of memory in placemaking, and how to celebrate diversity without creating ethnic Disneylands.

At the Grassroots and Groundwork anti-poverty conference--held at Mystic Lake Casino, of all places--attendees heard about ingenious ways to build wealth in struggling communities by adapting old-school immigrant self-help tactics to the digital age.

Managing Photographer Bill Kelley talked to some friends, checked in with some experts, and wandered the city a bit on his own to find the local street art that appealed to him the most. Herewith, his images of art meant to make you stop, look, have a startle reaction, and then continue on your way, energized.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: a preview of what the Walker has in store for its stage.

In town to talk about the Central Corridor, Hennepin Avenue, and other local nodes of city planning, lauded urbanist Charles Landry called for an approach that integrates the cities' diverse cultures into a rich, essentially artistic, mix--and makes everyone feel appreciated and included.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: Laurie and I explore a Ramsey County regional park that's very rural--and very urban.

From books to documentaries to television appearances, Geoffrey Canada has earned accolades as an education reform leader and the head of Harlem Children’s Zone. Last week he was in Minneapolis to speak to a convention of youth and educators involved in the service-learning movement, where he told them "you never know when you'll be needed."