MPR Archive presents a selection of stories tied to various the aspects, history, and battles for civil rights of individuals and groups within the State of Minnesota.
August 15, 2001 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer speaks with Michael Yang, director of the Immigrant and Refugee Policy Coalition of Minnesota, about ceremony at Bethel College's Benson Hall where 730 Hmong Veterans and widows from Laos will become U.S. Citizens.
August 15, 2001 - MPR’s Kaomi Goetz reports on historic ceremony in which 700 Hmong refugees became U.S. citizens at a bilingual ceremony in St. Paul. The event was made possible by a federal law giving special consideration to Hmong veterans who fought at the side of U-S forces during the Vietnam War.
October 4, 2001 - Magda Saikali, in her 40s and orginally born in Egypt grew up in Minnesota and has been here over 30 years. She owns an international clothing shop in St. Paul and is a spokeswoman for Teaching and Learning Islam, an educational community outreach group. Muslim women in Minnesota say they've been targets of discrimination and backlash since the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Many women who practice Islam wear the heijab, or headscarf, to demonstrate their belief in modesty. This show of faith makes them easy to single out for personal harrrassment...and many Muslim women say they are afraid to leave their homes.
October 10, 2001 - Al-Amal School is a private school located across the street from Totino Grace opened in 1994. Al-Amal allows for religion practices within the school day.
October 31, 2001 - MPR’s Marisa Helms reports that 10 openly gay candidates are running for office in Minneapolis in 2001. All of them are DFLers. Half are running for City Council seats; the remaining five are spread among the Library Board, Park Board, School Board and the Board of Estimate and Taxation. Political observers say that being gay is apparently not an issue for most Minneapolis voters.
November 14, 2001 - On this special edition of Midday, Gary Eichten hosts and moderates MPR's Color of Justice Forum, held at the Sabathani Community Center in Minneapolis. Panelists include St. Paul Police Chief Bill Finney, DFL State Senator Jane Ranum, Republican State Representative and Minneapolis Police Inspector Rich Stanek, Hennepin County Judge Tanya Bransford, Hennepin County Public Defender Leonardo Castro, and Minnesota Corrections Commissioner Sheryl Ramstad-Hvass.
November 15, 2001 - A collection of reports from the MPR special series "The Color of Justice," which investigates the racial disparity in Minnesota’s criminal justice system. This Midday program includes reports by MPR’s Dan Olson, Brandt Williams, and Elizabeth Stawicki, as well as various interviews and commentary of officials, academics, and community members.
November 15, 2001 - MPR’s Brandt Williams conducts a 'rolling roundtable' discussion on the issue of "Driving While Black" with three Black men as they drive around the Twin Cities.
November 16, 2001 - “The Color of Justice: The News Disparities” is part five of an MPR special series which investigates the racial disparity in Minnesota’s criminal justice system. Discussions of race and the criminal justice system tend to focus on the disproportionate rates at which African Americans are arrested and jailed. However, the growth of Latinos, Hmong, and Somali in Minnesota has broadened the scope of the disparities issue.
November 28, 2001 - Amnesty International is issuing an urgent call for its one million members to write letters to President Bush to protest the detention of Zacarias Moussaoui, (Moo-SOW-ee) a French citizen allegedly connected to the September 11th attacks. Moussaoui was arrested in Eagan last August, but has not been formally charged by the Justice Department. Shortly after September 11th, the FBI labeled Moussaoui the twentieth hijacker. But government officials backed away from that claim earlier this month.