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--
When I ran for city council in Madison, Wisconsin in 1967, students
gained the right to vote in local elections in part because I gave voice
to an elementary question of civil rights. Before that local moment in
that city, students were officially transient: vulnerable to the draft
but not a party to the decisions of the body politic in their vicinity.
I broke new ground as a city council candidate at the tender age of 29
and it surely is a delight now to see Marcus Harcus and Jeffrey Booty
and Tamir Nolley step into the spotlight in this city in 2001 and
similarly speak their minds as they see fit. What new ground may these
new voices have broken?
A phrase from that previous tumultuous time is still relevant: "Think
globally but act locally." I admire the visionary thinkers in the Green
Party of Minnesota who have stepped forward as candidates for the
Minneapolis Park Board and the Minneapolis City Council. They dare to
think out of the box. They understand that we live in settings that are
both intimate and yet part of larger ecologies and they wrestle with
adapting their insights to the working language and mores of our
existing municipal systems. They offer new opportunities for citizenship
because they do not limit themselves intellectually to the status quo
ante.
Also in 1966-67, I was introduced in law school to the concept of the
adversarial system of justice and was informed that American
jurisprudence would founder were there not this official dichotomy.
In 1970 and thereafter, I set aside this litigious commandment and
nurtured the notion of collaboration on areas of agreement when
negotiating the civil compact between citizens affected and the official
urban renewal forces in the vicinity of Nicollet Island and the St.
Anthony Falls Historic District here in Minneapolis. Vietnam protests
were very much in vogue, Mayor Stenvig was battling street bonfires with
bulldozers, and National Guard helicopters were flying overhead as
college students under my supervision were planting flower gardens and
building a vestpocket park for a small community the city had every
intention of removing permanently.
The Minneapolis City Council eventually gave a de facto seal of approval
to our novel attitudes on Nicollet Island when it granted a special
permit for Pearl and Sheba, our burros that lived with us for quite a
few years there in the heart of what became "our", not "the", city. We
were, of course, thinking out of the box about our local situation while
being perfectly aware of international, national, and municipal
tensions. [Hint to the September 11 Minneapolis primary survivors: there
will be a test!]
We learned from our elderly neighbors and protected them from harm the
while. We worked with our familiar local police to keep the peace along
the river. We made alliances with historians and journalists and
sociologists and architects. We learned the policy language that would
inevitably impact our lives and worked with government agencies and
other interested parties to bring good things to pass. We brought
prosaic notions of civic virtue to the fore where we lived and held on
to them tenaciously, sharing them with school children and high school
and college students while mighty battles were fought between ambitious
developers and determined neighborhood adversaries elsewhere in
Minneapolis. We did this in full knowledge that our country was
concurrently going through a major constitutional crisis.
My points from this bit of euphoric recall are that citizenship can be
non-conforming and productive; that global awarenesses provide context
and can be turned to worthy local purposes; that governments -
especially this very Minneapolis government - can be taught to do better
if citizens are willing to take on the task.
Fred Markus Horn Terrace Ward Ten
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