Trade book ISBN: 1932047700 Publication: 10/22/02 326 pages Price: $24.95 First Print Run: 10,000 Available from Beacon On The Hill Press.
Booksellers: to place orders: The Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes, provides the words and experience of a Renaissance Black Man in a White Man’s world. The author has spent 40 years as a community activist in Minneapolis, Minnesota (has headed the Civil Rights Commission and the Urban League), and although he talks directly of Minneapolis, the process he analyzes and the system he reports is similar in cities all across America. In 18 riveting chapters and 16 enlightening short Interludes of significant historical happenings, Ron Edwards tells the story of Minneapolis, one of the whitest cities in America, and its systematic efforts, to quote James Baldwin famous phrase, "to keep Black people in their place." Ron Edwards thoroughly engages his reader in what will become known as a must read in the Black community and for all people who want to see just how a city operates and what is behind a city’s willingness to pay the price of unrest and disturbances in order to deny Blacks adequate education (keeping Blacks in poor schools and thus not competitive with suburban kids), housing (the Holmann project as an example of razing Black housing in order to raise White housing), and job opportunities (purposefully denying Black contractors and Black workers), as Whites systematically try everything, from gerrymandering to court records tampering to stealing (shredding?) files to buying off Black leadership to the theft of Black wealth and property, to carrying out a war against young Black men to holding the University higher than people, to manipulating the electoral process to a whole range of corrupt practices, including setting up the mostly Black team, the NFL Vikings, to be run out of town. The Minneapolis Story is not just a tell all, it is an explain all, as Ron connects the dots to explain the systematic efforts to deny Blacks equal access and equal opportunity. As he says, if they can do this to Blacks they can certainly also do it to Whites who are not wealthy, powerful, or connected. Ron Edwards book is destined to be a best seller as he brings to America an authentic voice of the everyday Black person whose organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League have become part of the problem and are no longer part of the solution, as they collude with the city powers to keep poor Blacks down on the Mississippi’s Grandest Liberal Plantation. In The Minneapolis Story, Ron Edwards connects the dots for the reader, acting as a beacon on the hill shining the light of truth And yet, as clear as it is that he doesn’t like the racist system of Minneapolis, it is also clear that he loves his city, its people, and that he brings a joy of living, and offers concrete ways for evaluating how to develop "a better future" of "positive possibilities," bringing all of the suggestions for doing so throughout the book together in the last chapter. The Minneapolis Story will open your eyes and hearts. We hope it also opens you up to follow the positive action Ron outlines for all the people of Minneapolis, and tell the Minneapolis Story as Ron has told you, to all the people you care about and respect. |
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Minneapolis Story, Through My Eyes Author: Ron Edwards