It was originally going to be on Albert Lea, but unfortunately Albert Lea hasn’t had much to do with the movement in its history. Rather, it was often the opposite. In the 1920s, the KKK had its own local chapter here, where they held parades, burned crosses by the lake, and even held a huge rally at the fairgrounds. The only other sources I could find were some old Tribune articles that leaned anti-movement. I had to broaden my scope to all of Minnesota. People advocating for their civil rights had been going on in America well before the actual Civil Rights Movement, but for this column I will mostly limit it to the 1930s-60s.

Minnesota tended to be ahead of the federal government with its anti-discrimination and anti-segregation laws. Beginning in 1869, Minn. passed a law outlawing segregation in schools. From 1877 to the 1940s, Minn. passed eight anti-segregation laws. In 1937, the University of Minnesota got rid of segregated dorms; the previous university president hadn’t allowed Black students to live on campus.

The first Fair Employment Practices Committee was started by Minneapolis mayor Hubert Humphrey in 1946. During the lunch counter sit downs in 1960, picketers in St. Paul protested outside of the local Woolworths store until the chain banned all lunch counter segregation. Freedom rides, where protestors rode interstate buses into the segregated South, became popular in 1961. Six of these riders were Minnesotans. Josie Johnson, a famous Minnesotan activist, brought Minnesotans to the March on Washington and an interracial group of women to protest in Mississippi.

In 1967, MLK spoke at the U of M in front of 4,000 students. Two years after MLK’s speech, 70 Black students peacefully occupied the University’s Morrill Hall to protest the lack of an African American studies program. The program was instituted swiftly after. Meanwhile in K-12 education in the Cities, segregation was still an ongoing problem. Most schools were still not fully integrated, which led to Minneapolis starting a bussing integration program that would bus thousands of students to schools outside of their neighborhoods. The program was met with some backlash, like at a school board meeting in 1970, where many in the crowd booed and shouted racial insults. A judge eventually ruled that Minneapolis had to integrate their schools within three years.

Unfortunately, the Civil Rights Movement did not end racism in Minn. One of the most recent examples is the 2020 death of George Floyd. The Black Lives Matter movement is a continuation of the fight for civil rights. MLK Jr. Day should not just be a day to remember the man and the Civil Rights Movement of the past, but also be a poignant reminder of the work we have left to do.