The 38th Street & Chicago Avenue Re-Envisioned Project Description

In November 2021, Public Policy Project partnered with NEOO Partners Development to work with the city of Minneapolis Public Works Department to launch a public engagement process to “Re-Envision” and reconstruct the intersection at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue South Minneapolis.

The murder of George Floyd May 25, 2020, at the intersection of 38th & Chicago Avenue shook the world. For the first time, the world was able to witness firsthand what black people have been protesting and demonstrating about for years; the murder of a black man at the hands of an American police officer. The world was now able to understand the reason for the Black Lives Matter movement. The world saw for themselves probably the most horrific murder of a black man by police ever captured on video. There was no way law-enforcement could explain why a police officer held his knee on the neck of a black man until he was lifeless. The world observed the nonchalant attitude of the officer while he squeezed the life out of another human being.

The American criminal justice system and its history of embeddedness as a weapon of white supremacy goes back to slavery. The first police were slave patrols. Police resources are over-concentrated in Black communities, making today’s police force a close approximation of slave patrols. They are there to keep us in place – in zones of economic and political marginalization – and to contain unrest so it is not harmful to white supremacy. We must heal in our communities to change our conversation with the systems that impact our lives. We need those systems to change their conversation with us, in full commitment to a future without slavery or oppressed communities of any form, anywhere.

We believe we are in a transformative moment, that needs transformative commitments so it may be used to transform society from norms of racial injustice to norms of deep racial justice.

The murder of George Floyd rearranged the city’s plan to develop the 38th street & Chicago Ave corridor roadway reconstruction. Since his death, the intersection also referred to as, George Floyd Square (GFS), has flourished with art, hosted countless visitors from all corners of the globe and challenged the relationship between the street and public space.

So, it is imperative that the community be engaged as leaders from beginning through the life of the project. The community (residents and stakeholders) should be the primary beneficiaries (economic, social, political,) of what is created at the corridor.

Public Policy Project and NEOO Partners invite residents and stakeholder in the neighborhood surrounding the 38th & Chicago Ave intersection to make your voice heard about what you want to see at the intersection. -James Trice, CEO Public Policy Project

38th & Chicago Listening Session Report

38th & Chicago Fact Sheets