‘Cover Stories’ Archives
Cedar-Riverside: A Sketch of Displacement and Resistance
By JESSIE MERRIAM, Public History student working on a mobile museum for Our Streets Minneapolis. Originally published in local punk-adjacent newsletter zine, Restless Legs Inquirer. Re-printed with permission. Cartoon of the forces shaping Cedar Riverside, for community listening sessions in May 2022. By Jessie Merriam. The wavy-crusted pie slice that is now called Cedar Riverside was once a continuous neighborhood with Seward and Phillips. Also known over the years as Riverside, Seven Corners, Bohemian Flats, Snoose Boulevard (Snus = Swedish snuff), “The Haight Ashbury of the Midwest,” and “Little Mogadishu,” Cedar Riverside has always been a place of intersections. “There were no neighborhoods before Urban Renewal–we lived in South Minneapolis! They needed clever labels. Our speech had nothing to do with neighborhoods,” reported a Seward neighborhood elder historian over coffee this January. “Block groups! That’s the basic foundation–come on now! [...]
Don’t Miss Out on Medicare Benefits
By JETTA WIEDEMEIER BOWER for the Senior LinkAge Line Barbara B. lives in Minneapolis, and she got a chair for her husband that helps him stand up after sitting in it and a button to wear around his neck to call for help if he needs it. She got these things because she called the Senior Linkage Line® to ask for help with getting Medicare benefits. “There are people out there who just don’t know what’s available to them,” Barbara says. “Older people worked hard for years, and we deserve these benefits.” Janice H., also of Minneapolis, says there are a lot of people in her African American community who don’t know about Medicare. “They assume it’s not for them because they don’t quite understand it,” she says. “And they don’t realize that a lot of services and benefits are available at no cost.” As the volunteer and outreach manager for the Senior LinkAge Line, I can tell you that Barbara and Janice are right. And that’s why we work to get [...]
After Decades of Poor Air in Phillips, Proof: Pollutants Harm Health
MN 2023 Law Prompts Change: where over 40% are non-white & over 40% limited English, and/or 35% low income By H. LYNN ADELSMAN & ROB HENDRICKSON Map above by Rob Hendrickson. With severe wildfire smoke covering much of the country this June, air quality is back in the headlines, but some of the most hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) have been present in our neighborhoods for decades. This past spring, a statewide law passed (HF637) requiring the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to consider the cumulative impacts of air pollution before adding to the burden, also known as the Frontline Communities Protection Act.Cumulative impacts are the total combinations of chemical and non-chemical emissions across space and time that cause disease and affect health, well-being, and quality of life outcomes. This new bill requires analyzing existing levels of pollution before issuing air quality permits in areas like Phillips that are over 40% non-white, 40% limited [...]
