Minneapolis Uprising – September 2022

By September 2022, more than two years had passed since the murder of George Floyd and the unrest that followed, yet Minneapolis remained visibly marked by both what had been destroyed and what had not yet been rebuilt. The Third Precinct on Lake Street stood vacant behind barricaded fencing, and the US Bank building on East Lake Street was still in the process of being demolished.

The arc of recovery across the city was uneven. The Lake Street Station post office, burned in May 2020, was nearing reopening after being fully rebuilt. Midori's Floating World Cafe had relocated to a new space on Lake Street after losing its original building. Other lots remained empty, their walls painted over with murals. Little Earth Trail was still blocked by concrete barriers following the return of encampments to the Wall of Forgotten Natives area.

Alongside that incomplete recovery, ordinary city life continued in ways that complicated any single reading of the moment. The Mexican Independence Day Festival drew large crowds to Lake Street. Construction was underway on new bars and entertainment venues in downtown Minneapolis. Operation Endeavor, a policing initiative led by Community Safety Commissioner Cedric Alexander, put additional Minneapolis Police Department vehicles into the streets. The Minnesota State Fair drew political booths ranging from Senator Amy Klobuchar's legislative outreach to a protest display targeting Governor Tim Walz over pandemic-era policies.

This instalment sits in a stretch of the larger series when the acute emergency of 2020 had passed but the questions it raised — about policing, accountability, rebuilding, and what the city owed its residents — remained unresolved and publicly visible at nearly every turn.