News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Monday January 5th 2026
Fire and Ice
By HARVEY WINJE
This Wendell Phillips quote was a response to a friend, Brother May, who had asked, “Wendell, why are you so on fire?” after a fervent speech against the moral outrage of slavery.
Phillips’s reply highlights the immense challenge he and other abolitionists faced in changing the deep-seated apathy, indifference, and resistance to their cause. The “fire” represented his passion and moral clarity, while the “mountains of ice” symbolized societal inertia and opposition to abolishing slavery.
There is societal inertia and opposition to
Wendell Phillips
“Peace if possible, Justice at any rate”
(another of the quotes Phillips favored) when it comes many issues confronting us today. The late Senator Paul Wellstone claimed the quote as a favorite, along with
Wendell Phillips, later used by Paul Wellstone
“Brother, I’m on fire because I have mountains of ice before me to melt.”
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Taking too long?WHAT WE CARRY
By ATLAS OF BLACKNESS
Last month, Atlas of Blackness presented “What We Carry” at the John and Denise Graves Foundation’s Creating Change Gallery, an intimate exhibition featuring the 2024 Black Scholar Fellows. Over many months, these young storytellers, artists, and cultural workers traced the emotional, structural, and historical forces that shape Black life in the Twin Cities. Their work examines the weight held in our bodies and families, the memories our cities ask us to carry, and the moments that refuse silence. Centering Black mental health, the complexities of Black motherhood, the long shadow of loss, and the quiet transformations that make survival possible, this exhibition insists that these experiences are not marginal or private. They are primary sites of knowledge and power, especially for women, nonbinary people, and Black youth coming of age in an uncertain time. Curated by Lucina Kayee and Patience Zalanga, “What We Carry” honors the depth of their stories and the communities that shaped them.
What the artists hold
Working across photography, painting, and oral storytelling, each artist offers a body of work that pushes against dominant narratives about Black life. Their projects emerge from lived experience, research, and the emotional terrain they have learned to navigate.… Read the rest “WHAT WE CARRY”
Design Plans for Owámniyomni Restoration Unveiled
By OWÁMNIYOMNI OKHÓDAYAPI
After nearly a decade of relationship building, community conversations, and reimagining what the riverfront could be, Dakota-led nonprofit Owámniyomni Okhódayapi has unveiled its design for restoring the land and water at Owámniyomni, just north of the Phillips neighborhood. The project area includes a five-acre site adjacent to the Upper Lock on the Mississippi Riverfront, along with three additional acres managed by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board.
Owámniyomni, known to many as St. Anthony Falls, has been a sacred place for Dakota and other Indigenous peoples since long before Minneapolis existed. The land holds significant spiritual power for the community as a space where families have gathered to pray, hold ceremonies, and welcome new life into the world. Settler industrialization of the Mississippi River reshaped the land for milling, power, and other industries that erased much of the original landscape.
Today, Owámniyomni Okhódayapi is working to transform the area into a place of public education, community gathering, and healing through cultural and environmental restoration. The project is led by Dakota voices and values. The unveiling of this new design marks an exciting and important step toward realizing that vision.… Read the rest “Design Plans for Owámniyomni Restoration Unveiled”
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