Indigenous-Led Collectives Are Keeping Minnesotan Communities Safe From ICE |
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A cozy cafe in the heart of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has become a staging ground for Indigenous-led patrols working to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) off their streets. Pow Wow Grounds, opened in 2011 by Bob Rice, has been both a gathering place for community members attempting to make sense of the scale of violence they have witnessed over the past few weeks and a place to strategize an autonomous response.
During Truthout’s visit to the cafe at the end of January, wagons full of supplies — from food and gas masks to Narcan — passed in and out of Pow Wow Grounds’ front door, which for the first time was kept locked to keep ICE agents out. The door was unlocked again and again to allow the wagons into the newly repurposed All My Relations gallery space, which is housed with Pow Wow Grounds in the Native American Community Development Institute.
“Look outside,” Rice said during an interview with Truthout in the cafe. “This is the American Indian Cultural Corridor, the heart of Native life here in Minneapolis. They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
“They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
Rice’s efforts to supply the Native community and its allies with “soup and supplies,” as he told Truthout, have been successful. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and of the Many Shields Warrior Society (an Indigenous community security group) have been patrolling the streets of Minneapolis’s Phillips neighborhood since the start of the occupation, and they do not plan to stop.
“We all have a place. My place is to make sure people are fed and get a cup of coffee,” Rice said.
As is the case with many Minneapolis residents who do not imagine themselves as demonstrators — much less radicals — getting involved in anti-ICE activities, Rice said this felt like the logical thing to do. “We get a call that someone needs something, but they don’t want to leave the house. We have a volunteer list of people who will drive stuff out. This is about keeping the community safe,” Rice stressed.
Masked federal agents have been ubiquitous in the city since the start of “Operation Metro Surge” in December, and for the Native community, the idea of police brutalizing members of their community is hardly new.
“The day after Renee Good was murdered, I remember waking up and thinking I need to get to work and open up the gallery for the people, and it was just immediately, this is what we need to do,” Angela Two........