‘History’ Archives
Review: Let Me Tell You About Al Flowers
Dwight Hobbes’ Let Me Tell You About Al Flowers (ETO/Even The Odds Press) is an interesting and insightful read. Brother Al has been through some experiences that eventually led up to his transformation to a path of truth and justice. As most transformations do, the pain, the suffering and the witnessing of human tragedy and the injustice brought upon himself, his family and community finally allowed the ancestors’ spirits to burst out of him. Since this awakening Al has been on a mission to rebuild the Black community. Often being a thorn in the sides of Black and White people in the struggle for justice, Brother Flowers can have an intrusive and blusterous way of engaging the status quo. This book is a story of the transformation of a kid from the projects of Chicago to his migration to Minnesota in the 70s to a leading activist for social, economic and political justice in the Black community in Minneapolis. Hobbes’ (dwighthobbes.weebly.com), author of Something I Said and [...]
Winston: A Woman’s Fight for Freedom in Minnesota
By the HENNEPIN HISTORY MUSEUM Dr. Lehman. Photo: Jeff Yapuncich On Saturday, October 11, the Hennepin History Museum will celebrate the opening of Winston: A Woman’s Fight for Freedom in Minnesota, an exhibit about the little-known story of Eliza Winston, the first and only enslaved person to successfully fight for their freedom in a Minnesota courtroom. Winston presents the biography of a courageous African American woman and the short time she spent in Minnesota. Her story not only sheds new light on local history, but transcends it, establishing significance within national history. De facto slavery was widely accepted in antebellum Minnesota. For years, Southern enslavers forced their captives to accompany them to the free state for business and pleasure. This ended in 1860 when Eliza Winston bravely fought for liberation. Her emancipation became local lore and national propaganda, so much so that she was largely excluded from her own narrative, one that reveals a [...]
Heart of the Beast Not Limited To a Place
By HARVEY WINJE Heart of the Beast in the community. Photo Courtesy:HOBT HOBT has occupied four locations that served as indoor workshops, classrooms, performance stages, and offices while always doing production, teaching, and performing at other indoor and outdoor places. These spaces included parks, schools, theaters, community centers, and streets throughout the Twin Cities area and suburbs. Other traveling adventures took HOBT to Washington, D.C.; New Orleans, LA; Brookings and Mitchell, SD; Itasca, MN and to the Gulf of Mexico on a Mississippi river towns tour with ”Circle of Water Circus” (currently exhibited at the Hennepin History Museum). In 2000, HOBT performed at the DMZ–Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. HOBT has been a place that welcomes everyone no matter where it’s taught, performed, or at any one of its four studio/workshop/stage locations:1973-1985: Walker Community Church 3104 16th Avenue So; demolished after May 27, 2012 fire [...]
