South Minneapolis Black community history reflects Great Migration roots, segregation policies, and the building of parallel institutions that sustained generations.
Millions of African Americans left Southern states from 1910 to 1970 in pursuit of new lives, industrial work, and to escape Jim Crow. Many of them moved to South Minneapolis, arriving by the 1930s during the Great Migration.
Restrictive housing covenants, redlining, and racist realtors pushed Black Americans into three distinct areas in Minnesota, including the south side of Minneapolis, between East Thirty-Fourth and Forty-Sixth Streets, and from Nicollet Avenue to Chicago Avenue, which was first populated by Swedes and Norwegians, according to MNopedia, an online encyclopedia of Minnesota history.
The other two areas for Black residents were on the north side of Minneapolis and in Rondo, St. Paul…