News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Sunday January 11th 2026
Every Life is a Unique Story Worth Telling
239th in the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery
By ALEX WESTON
Fleeting glimpses of a vanished world
Over 22,000 people are buried in Minneapolis’ Pioneer & Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, but there are only 1,820 grave markers.
The privileged are more likely to have
their stories preserved.
This works as a metaphor for history itself. History is not “what happened in the past,” but rather a web of stories we tell about the past. Like the grave markers at Pioneer & Soldiers Memorial Cemetery—which represent only around 8% of the individuals buried there—the evidence from which we construct these stories is fragmentary. We get only fleeting glimpses of a vanished world.
Some stories get passed on, while most are forgotten. Generally, the privileged are more likely to have their stories preserved, while the marginalized tend to be forgotten. The Cemetery has so few headstones partly because it was a burial ground for common people, not the rich and powerful. But even here there are disparities. Some paupers’ graves were never marked. Others once had cheap wooden markers that rotted away.… Read the rest “Every Life is a Unique Story Worth Telling”
Monthly Update: Phillips Community Oral History Project. Oct. ’25
By PHILLIPS COMMUNITY ORAL HISTORY PROJECT PARTNERS
Welcome back to the Phillips Community Oral History Project monthly update! This regular Column is an important part of the Project’s outreach to the Phillips Community. It is a space where we will share key progress milestones and keep the project accountable to the people of Phillips.
After a long planning period and the official launch in September, the Phillips Community Oral History Project is now well underway. We have several updates, but the most exciting of these is that interviews have begun! As of mid-September, the Project has interviewed ten people. Of those, three were planned in advance, including Steve Sandberg, Rico Morales, and Becky Gazca. Seven additional interviews were conducted across three pop-up interview events at Franklin Library. Look out for more pop-up events around Phillips; Community members are encouraged to attend and tell their Phillips stories!
Even at this early stage, the interviews include people from all four Neighborhoods of Phillips and cover about forty years of Community history. Stories have mentioned Phillips landmarks like Franklin Library, Mercado Central, Midtown Global Market, the Roof Depot, and East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI). Many of the stories talked about housing, experiences with homelessness, community organizing in Phillips’ public spaces, and the multicultural identity of our Neighborhoods.… Read the rest “Monthly Update: Phillips Community Oral History Project. Oct. ’25”
Keep citizen journalism alive!
Mosaic or Melting Pot?
Dominant Theologies Denied Marginalized People
from the series Peace House Community Journal…
By MARTI MALTBY
I recently read The Cross and Lynching Tree by James Cone. Cone was one of the first and most respected Black Liberation Theologians who emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that the dominant Christian theology denied the experiences of minorities and had nothing to offer marginalized peoples.
The Cross and the Lynching Tree was Cone’s final book before his death. He pointed out the similarities between Jesus’ crucifixion and the experiences of Black Americans who were lynched in this country. He also expressed shock that so few theologians, Black or White, could see the similarities. When he laid out the parallels, I was shocked, too, that I had never seen them, nor heard about them in my fifty plus years of attending church.
Individual, cultures, and groups can have blind spots
The experience was a little surreal, and it reminded me that cultures and groups can have blind spots in the same way that individuals can have them. We simply cannot see everything from other people’s perspectives. We end up assuming that we are right, or that there is one proper way of doing things, without seeing the harm we do to others.… Read the rest “Mosaic or Melting Pot?”