Minneapolis has become an actual site of the destruction of democratic norms that so many in our history have died to establish as well as the symbol of resistance to empire. Last week, hundreds of faith leaders answered a call to witness on site. We know that many of our readers have been involved in mutual aid in defense of the most vulnerable, both in their own communities and in Minneapolis. We encourage you to find out what your local DSA chapter is doing. A recent national DSA call had more than a thousand people on it and raised money to send to Minneapolis. The national DSA website gives information about the depredations of ICE. Below are three accounts from faith leaders of their time organizing, protesting, and walking the streets in witness in Minneapolis. Lisa Holton’s and Matthew Nelson’s testimonies are adapted and lightly edited from testimony given on Zoom at Judson Memorial Church in New York City on Sunday, January 25.--Ed.

Lisa Holton

A week ago Thursday,  MARCH in Minnesota, a pro-queer, anti-racist, multi-faith group put out a call to clergy around the country. A week later, more than 600 of us–Buddhist monks, rabbis, Hindu leaders, Muslim leaders, Christian ministers and Catholic priests, Interfaith ministers, and atheists – were sitting together in the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis preparing for two days of action. 

I come to you today with a heart that is both broken and hopeful. And I also come with specific messages from the brave folks in Minneapolis. 

First, Minneapolis is an occupied territory. I am not using that language lightly–it is not a metaphor, it is not hyperbole. It is a fact. A violent, lawless military force, sent by an authoritarian leader, has Minneapolis under siege. The mainstream media coverage is not coming close to telling the truth about what’s happening. You don’t even need to see an ICE agent on the ground to know this. You can feel the fear and terror in the air–it’s palpable. Businesses are boarded up because immigrants are scared to be seen running them. Schools are half-full because parents are in hiding. 

Second, the good people of Minneapolis are responding with courage, resilience, creativity, and love. The media keeps talking about protesters, and of course there are protests. But I was asked by local clergy to tell you that the main response on the ground right now is community protection. Hundreds of bags of groceries have been delivered to people afraid to leave their houses; medications have been procured; organized groups are walking kids to school whose parents are in hiding. Car patrols are in constant motion,  meant to disrupt ICE kidnappings.  These are being carried out not only by long-time activists and organizers, but by everyday people who care about their neighbors. They are organized; they are committed; they are in it for the long haul. 

Intimidation, state violence, and oppression are not new to our Black and Brown community members; they are a daily constant. And let’s be clear – that is exactly who is being targeted. At this moment, in Minneapolis, people are showing up and coming out to stand with and protect their neighbors who are under attack.

They are also exhausted. And they need our help. Here are some things you can do:

• Send money. Do research and find local, on-the-ground organizations who are doing this work. 
• If you are on social media, talk about what you are hearing and seeing. Tell the truth to combat the false narrative. As folks on the ground have asked: “Eyes not Lies.” 

The Minneapolis organizers reminded us of the difference between symbolic action and disruptive disobedience. Symbolic action–like protests–have their place, but they alone are not going to get us anywhere. We all need to think about where we are plugged into the pillars of power–business, government, education–and how we can disrupt those pillars.  If you are at all connected to politicians, even local ones, call them and ask what they are doing. Tell them you don’t care that they don’t represent Minneapolis because we are all Minneapolis right now. We all represent Minneapolis. 

Local organizers and citizens are focused on Target because it is based there, and because it is complicit. Target is letting ICE agents come in and kidnap their workers. You might think, well it doesn’t matter if I boycott Target because I’m only one person. True, but what if your faith community asks  every community to which it’s connected to boycott Target? What if you ask every one of your colleagues to boycott? The message from our Minneapolis neighbors is that we all need to be much more aggressive in our nonviolent disruptions, while always making sure that those of us who are white are learning from, supporting, and following the movements led by endangered communities who have been waging this war for decades.  

My final message is the most important one: We need to lead with love. We need to keep our broken hearts soft and open.  Systematic violence is meant to cause fear, hatred, and despair.  Minneapolis is fighting back with love – love for their neighbors and love for their country.  On Friday, we stood at the airport in negative 20 degree weather supporting over 70 local clergy who were arrested protesting Delta Airlines’ complicity in the kidnappings and deportations. And as we stood there we sang, “You need to put one foot in front of the other, and lead with love. I know you’re scared; I’m scared too. But I am here, right next to you.” 

We need to mobilize and stand with Minneapolis as we continue to stand with our immigrant neighbors here and with all endangered communities across the country.  

Let’s lead with love. 

Lisa Holton is an interfaith minister who currently serves as a community minister at Judson Memorial Church and volunteers with the NYC-based mutual aid organization Mi Tlalli.

Matthew Nelson

First, I feel held by Judson. You have sent texts, emails, and messages on social media of support and solidarity. I feel held.

After a day of empowering witness, resistance, protest, march and a general strike, despair hit again quickly with the murder of Alex Pretti. But let me tell you stories of hope:

• Clergy flew in from all over the country–they were protesting at the airport, at corporate offices, and marching
• One of the wealthiest suburbs of Minneapolis is organizing food drives and deliveries to immigrant families. This is a community that stopped coming to downtown Minneapolis after the murder of George Floyd
• The general strike asked people to not shop, not work, and not go to school. The roads in the Twin Cities were empty on Friday. Businesses had closed "in solidarity with our community"
• In my lowertown neighborhood of St Paul, we have quickly organized to help businesses understand their rights and how to keep employees and customers safe, to pressure public officials, to communicate needs, and to offer rapid response to ICE activity
• Even after the murder on Saturday, Minnesotans came out with candles on street corners, in windows, and gathered in neighborhood parks to share their grief, their anger, and songs of hope
• Addendum: January 26: The latest story of hope: Our new mayor is encouraging us to shop at ethnic markets, because their customer base is afraid to go out. I went to our local Super Mercado and was greeted at the locked door by two white women. After they assessed my intentions, I did my shopping. This is what community protection looks like for our neighbors and businesses in Minnesota!

And through all this, you have cared, supported, and loved us in Minnesota. I feel held.

Matthew Nelson is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. He is retired from a career in nonprofit management and philanthropy. He is now based in St Paul, Minnesota but continues to be a proud member of Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

Erica Poellot

I am writing on the plane returning home, overwhelmed with hope by what I have witnessed this week. More than 600 other faith leaders from beyond Minnesota responded to the call to stand in solidarity with our siblings in Minneapolis who are being disappeared by ICE: to patrol the neighborhoods where children are being separated from their families, detained, and used as bait; to talk and pray with the neighbors standing vigil in the neighborhoods where mothers are being murdered. 

We flew in Wednesday afternoon, and were greeted with Midwestern love and warmth by our colleague and friend Matthew; a magical Minneapolis love that would appear again and again with each person we met. 

En route to our downtown hotels, we drove past the site where Renee Good was executed by ICE agents; a couple of weeks into the new year following a year where over 32 people died in ICE custody. As we drove past what could have been any suburban neighborhood just after the evening commute, I was struck by the weight of the silence in the air. Next to the memorial site, a single person tended a fire that burned in the dark, the only other light coming from holiday decorations still hanging on homes and trees up and down the street.

The next day, we met this silence again, this time in the Lake Street district as clergy paired off to patrol the neighborhoods for ICE agents, stopping to speak with the one person we encountered, a young woman standing watch across the street from the high school to help keep her neighbors and neighbors’ children safe. She said they had been told that clergy were coming to support them and suggested that we might find others to be in conversation with at the grocery store on the corner, the only business open in the immediate area, secured behind locked doors and flanked by security officers. Once we were inside, the silence and below freezing temperatures gave way to friendly conversation in Spanish, and neighbors gathered around the delicatessen counter from which they offered us cups of sweet, warm leche de arroz.

The silence that figured so prominently the first days in the city was hard to even recall in the days that would follow. Friday morning, we supported our MN-based clergy colleagues in an act of non-violent civil disobedience at the Minneapolis-St.Paul airport. At the organizers request, clergy from out of town were asked to not risk arrest, so as to ensure that the full body of legal resources could be made available to local clergy who had been leading this critical work for decades and would carry this work on long past our departure. The air that day was rich with protest songs, prayers, and the recitation of the many names of people terrorized and disappeared by ICE during this administration.

The spirit of song and embodied protest and prayer would continue throughout the weekend, as clergy joined crowds of Minnesotans in the tens of thousands in the streets, at post-march rallies, and actions in the public square across the whole of downtown.  Presence was felt as song, as prayer, and it eradicated the silence.

This journey was a chance to use our lives and relationships in follower-ship: to “stand between the powers of the world and our most vulnerable neighbors,”  to witness with this body of mine– recently resurrected– and testify that this love and connection, this interdependence, is always ours. This love belongs to all.

Erica Poellot is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC), and serves as the Minister of Harm Reduction for the national UCC. She is the founder and executive director of Faith in Harm Reduction and a member of Judson Memorial Church in NYC.

Image credit: RNS photo/Jack Jenkins