Special Edition of Minnesota Native News: Bemidji, Rocking the Boat Part 2

This is the second in a two part series about the small city of Bemidji and the work people there are doing to show that Native Lives Matter. Bemidji is a city of about 15-thousand in Minnesota’s north woods. Native Americans - mostly Ojibwe or Anishinabe - make up about 50 percent of the population in the metro region. The town is near the borders of THREE of the largest and most populous Indian reservations in the state — the Red Lake Nation on the north, the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to the east and the White Earth Nation to the southwest. Over the past 50 years, Natives and non-Natives have been finding ways to make American Indians here less romanticized and less demonized. And yet - deep racial disparities persist in hospitals, in schools and in jails. In this half hour we’re hear about a new movement that’s building now.It’s focused on telling truths about the past to change minds and eventually the structures the maintain these racial inequities. Here’s reporter Melissa Townsend…

Shaynowishkong Statue Project, Facebook.com