Little Earth | |
---|---|
Residential Community | |
Country | United States |
State | Minnesota |
County | Hennepin |
City | Minneapolis |
Area | |
• Total | 2.3 sq mi (6 km2) |
Population (2010) | |
• Total | 1,500 |
• Density | 650/sq mi (250/km2) |
Time zone | UTC-6 (CST) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
ZIP code | 55404 |
Area code | 612 |
Website | https://www.littleearth.org/ |
Little Earth is a residential housing area in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States that is home to nearly 1,500 people, many of whom are Native American. The residential housing association at Little Earth considers itself a united people of 39 different Native American tribes, but the area is not an urban reservation, a common mischaracterization. [1] [2] Little Earth is located in the Phillips community of Minneapolis. While being a notable district, it is not one of the officially designated neighborhoods in the city.
In the 2010s, the population of Little Earth fluctuated between 1,200 and 1,500 people, with children comprising half the total. Almost all of the households had a reported income of less than $10,000 per year. [3] Little Earth has been described as being at the heart of Minneapolis' Native American community. Native American people represent 7 percent of the broader Phillips area in the southern part of Minneapolis, which is also the city's poorest area with 48 percent of people living in poverty. [4]
Little Earth was founded in 1973 as an affordable housing project in Minneapolis. The residential community was built out in the 1970s, becoming a 9.4-acre (3.8 ha), 212-unit housing complex at approximately East 24th Street and Cedar Avenue in the South Minneapolis area. Beginning soon after its founding, Little Earth and the surrounding community have been at the center of the American Indian Movement.
As of the 2010s, the Little Earth housing complex was the only Native American–preference, project-based Section 8 rental assistance community in the United States. [5] [6] The community's residential association, Little Earth of United Tribes, has filled a need for social services to residents by offering empowerment counselors, bike rentals, family therapy, tutoring, and homeownership opportunities. [7]
During the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul in May and June of 2020, community members organized safety patrol during the nights of heavy rioting, arson, and looting. Located less than one mile (1.6 km) from Lake Street, residents set up barricades to keep protesters from marching through the neighborhood, fearing it would result in property destruction and law enforcement actions. [8] The effort was credited with saving more than 20 businesses on Franklin Avenue. [9] Residents also organized nightly safety patrols, paid for lights at a park, and trained community members in de-escalation tactics, efforts some hoped would serve as a new model for policing in the city. [8]
The Little Earth community is located within the Phillips area of Minneapolis. On the eastern edge of the community along the Hiawatha transit corridor, the Little Earth Trail, a multi-use pedestrian and bicycle path, connects people to business and services from Franklin Avenue to East Lake Street. Several Native American organizations are in the broader Little Earth area, such as Minneapolis American Indian Center, the Native American Community Clinic, the Native American Community Development Institute, and the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. [4]
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
The Red Lake Indian Reservation covers 1,260.3 sq mi in parts of nine counties in Minnesota, United States. It is made up of numerous holdings but the largest section is an area around Red Lake, in north-central Minnesota, the largest lake in the state. This section lies primarily in the counties of Beltrami and Clearwater. Land in seven other counties is also part of the reservation. The reservation population was 5,506 in the 2020 census.
Prospect Park is a historic neighborhood within the University community of the U.S. city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The area is bounded by the Mississippi River to the south, the City of Saint Paul, Minnesota to the east, the Burlington Northern railroad yard to the north, and the Stadium Village commercial district of the University of Minnesota to the west. The neighborhood is composed of several districts which include the East River Road area. The 1913 Prospect Park Water Tower is a landmark and neighborhood icon.
Uptown is a commercial district in southwestern Minneapolis in the U.S. state of Minnesota, that is centered at the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and West Lake Street. It has traditionally spanned the corners of four neighborhoods, Lowry Hill East, East Bde Maka Ska, South Uptown and East Isles neighborhoods, which are all within the Calhoun Isles community. Historically, the boundaries of Uptown are Bde Maka Ska to the west, Dupont Avenue to the east, 31st Street to the south, and 28th Street to the north; though these borders often vary. Uptown is a popular destination for retail, nightlife, and cultural events, and the district was famously written about by recording artist Prince.
Minneapolis is officially defined by its city council as divided into 83 neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are historically grouped into 11 communities. Informally, there are city areas with colloquial labels. Residents may also group themselves by their city street suffixes: North, Northeast, South, and Southeast.
Clyde Howard Bellecourt was a Native American civil rights organizer. His Ojibwe name is Nee-gon-we-way-we-dun, which means "Thunder Before the Storm". He founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968 with Dennis Banks, Eddie Benton-Banai, and George Mitchell. His elder brother, Vernon Bellecourt, was also active in the movement.
Bois Forte Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation formed for the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.
The Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe is one of six federally recognized bands of Ojibwe people located in present-day Wisconsin. It had 7,275 enrolled members as of 2010. The band is based at the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation in northwestern Wisconsin, which surrounds Lac Courte Oreilles. The main reservation's land is in west-central Sawyer County, but two small plots of off-reservation trust land are located in Rusk, Burnett, and Washburn counties. The reservation was established in 1854 by the second Treaty of La Pointe.
Phillips is a community in Minneapolis, just south of downtown. Traditionally, it was both a community and a neighborhood. Phillips is a diverse area in many ways: its population includes people of many nationalities; it has a mix of residential, commercial and industrial uses; and it is home to several large employers such as Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Wells Fargo Mortgage and Allina Health Care Services, along with small neighborhood businesses.
Sumner-Glenwood is a neighborhood in the Near North community of Minneapolis. The neighborhood is roughly contained by 15 city blocks bordered to the north by 11th Avenue North, to the south by Glenwood Avenue, to the east by Interstate 94, and to the west by both Girard Terrace and Emerson Avenue North. It is located in Ward 5, represented by city council member Jeremiah Ellison. The neighborhood includes the Heritage Park mixed-use area.
Reservations in the United States, known as Indian reservations, are sovereign Native American territories that are managed by a tribal government in cooperation with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, a branch of the Department of the Interior, located in Washington, DC. There are 334 reservations in the United States today. As of 2008, almost a third of Native Americans in the United States live on reservations, totaling approximately 700,000 individuals. About half of all Native Americans living on reservations are concentrated on the ten largest reservations.
The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) is the second oldest American Indian organization in the United States with a membership of more than 15,000. It was the second independent native student organization, and one of the first native organizations to use direct action protests as a means to pursue its goals. During the 1960s, NIYC acted primarily as a civil rights organization. It was very active in the movement to preserve tribal fishing rights in the Northwest.
The Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), headquartered in the Main Interior Building in Washington, D.C., and formerly known as the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), is a division of the U.S. Department of the Interior under the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. It is responsible for the line direction and management of all BIE education functions, including the formation of policies and procedures, the supervision of all program activities, and the approval of the expenditure of funds appropriated for BIE education functions.
East Phillips is a neighborhood within the Phillips community in the US city of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Its northern boundary runs along East 24th Street from Bloomington Avenue to 17th Avenue South, then runs along East 22nd Street from 17th Avenue South to Little Earth Trail and Hiawatha Avenue. Its other boundaries are Hiawatha Avenue to the east, East Lake Street to the south, and Bloomington Avenue to the west. It is a part of Ward 9, currently represented by city council member Jason Chavez.
Police brutality is defined as the use of excessive force by law enforcement personnel while performing their official duties in an abusive and unjustified manner. Police brutality can also include psychological harm through the use of intimidation tactics beyond the scope of officially sanctioned police procedure.
Little Earth Trail is an approximately 1-mile (1.6 km), multi-use bicycle path in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, that links several neighborhoods, parks, businesses, and trails in the Phillips community. The trail begins at its northern end near the intersection of East Franklin Avenue and 16th Avenue South and eventually follows the west side of Hiawatha Avenue to the Midtown Greenway and Martin Olav Sabo Bridge. Named after the nearby Little Earth community, the shared-use pathway provides transportation and recreation opportunities, and is a frequent location of activism on social justice issues in Minneapolis.
38th Street is a major east-west roadway in the U.S. city of Minneapolis and an officially designated cultural district in the Powderhorn community. The area developed into a residential zone when the Chicago Avenue street car line was extended to East 38th Street in 1880. Since the 1930s, the area has featured many Black-owned businesses, and the surrounding neighborhoods have had distinct histories from other neighborhoods in Minneapolis due to racial settlement patterns that concentrated Black residents there.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Native American tribes and tribal communities has been severe and has emphasized underlying inequalities in Native American communities compared to the majority of the American population. The pandemic exacerbated existing healthcare and other economic and social disparities between Native Americans and other racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Along with black Americans, Latinos, and Pacific Islanders, the death rate in Native Americans due to COVID-19 was twice that of white and Asian Americans, with Native Americans having the highest mortality rate of all racial and ethnic groups nationwide. As of January 5, 2021, the mortality impact in Native American populations from COVID-19 was 1 in 595 or 168.4 deaths in 100,000, compared to 1 in 1,030 for white Americans and 1 in 1,670 for Asian Americans. Prior to the pandemic, Native Americans were already at a higher risk for infectious disease and mortality than any other group in the United States.
The aftermath of the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis–Saint Paul describes the result of civil disorder between May 26 and June 7, 2020, in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of the U.S. state of Minnesota. Protests began as a response to the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man on May 25, after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers assisted during an arrest. The incident was captured on a bystander's video and it drew public outrage as video quickly circulated in the news media by the following day.
The U.S. city of Minneapolis featured officially and unofficially designated camp sites in city parks for people experiencing homelessness that operated from June 10, 2020, to January 7, 2021. The emergence of encampments on public property in Minneapolis was the result of pervasive homelessness, mitigations measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Minnesota, local unrest after the murder of George Floyd, and local policies that permitted encampments. At its peak in the summer of 2020, there were thousands of people camping at dozens of park sites across the city. Many of the encampment residents came from outside of Minneapolis to live in the parks. By the end of the permit experiment, four people had died in the city's park encampments, including the city's first homicide victim of 2021, who was stabbed to death inside a tent at Minnehaha Park on January 3, 2021.