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The history of social activism in Minnesota is as much about protest as it is about advocacy. Social justice and protest are inextricably linked.

When it comes to legal dissent and embracing protest as political expression and free speech, official forces in the US and Minnesota have always resisted. When resistance meets resistance, when power resists those who speak to power, someone usually gets hurt. Such clashes date to the founding of all political entities everywhere – and Minnesota’s own history is rife and rich with the quest for justice, but recently – say, over the past 40-50 years of social and political upheaval – the forces of government have become more virulent, more dangerous in the name of homeland security and the so-called war on terror, than any previous periods, save those between the industrial giants and their exploited labor masses.

With every passing day, it seems, the government, even under Barak Obama, perhaps especially under this President, the Justice Department and local police forces keep stretching what they believe are justified intrusions into our private lives, not to mention our Constitutional right to publicly protest, to dissent from official policies maintaining our involvement in war and nation-building, in protecting despots over the people the rule. Thus do local and federal police forces now have the declared legal wherewithal to use any means necessary to quell such expression.

Those who have spent their lives or part of them standing up to these forces who would trample the rights of the rest of us to demand the elimination of discrimination, of racism, or the inequality of all humanity in every field of human endeavors are often praised in eulogies because they’ve died doing so.

Occasionally, some progress is claimed and rewarded with institutional change or with a cultural shift, slow as they all may be. Those still around to accept the kudos deserve them for their work as well as their survival.

The history of these phenomena is captured in a marvelous little volume by revered Minnesota Historian, Rhoda Gilman, one of the truly articulate chroniclers of Minnesota’s historical realities, including the definitive biography of Minnesota’s first state governor, Henry Sibley. Her latest book, Stand UP! The Story of Minnesota’ Protest Tradition, traces our conflicts beginning with the imposition on Minnesota’s Native peoples of the white man’s greed which itself came to a head during the Dakota Uprising 150 years ago this year, and takes us right up through the rise of the political right and the clashes in between.

Among the events demonstrating precisely the importance of protest was the 1969 takeover of the UofM’s Morrill Hall by African-American students. That upheaval led to the creation of the U’s first dedicated department – the African-American Studies Department, now the African-American and African Studies DepartmentMorrill Hall/Rachel Tilsen Social Justice Fund was established by alumni attending “We Still Have a Charge to Keep” events three years ago, the 40th Anniversary of V-DAY at Morrill Hall.

Guests:

RHODA GILMANHistorian, retired from the Minnesota Historical Society; former Green Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor; Author, Stand UP! The Story of Minnesota’ Protest Tradition

ROSE MARY FREEMAN MASSEY – Original member and President, 1969 UofM Afro American Action Committee; co-founder with Dr. Horace Huntley of the Morrill Hall/Rachel Tilsen Social Justice Fund; Instructor, Milwaukee Area Technical College History Department.

MELVIN GILES – St. Paul Community activist, peace advocate, community gardener; One of the first two recipients of the Morrill Hall/Rachel Tilsen Social Justice Fund.