It was so cold that I couldn’t take my gloves off and look at Google Maps, so I relied on the large crowd of people ahead of me. They all carried signs and wore whistles around their necks over layers of winter clothing. At first dozens of us were walking to Government Plaza, across the street from Minneapolis City Hall, and within a block there were hundreds of us. When I arrived it was in thousands. Some reports said five to ten thousand, but on the ground, it felt like a single vibrating mass that was too large to count.
I walked through the crowd, repeating “excuse me” and “excuse me” despite the noise because people here are, above all, extremely polite. Someone offered me a “Fuck ICE” pin. Someone else offered me a chocolate-chip cookie. Another offered me a red vuvuzela. All three declined to be named or given interviews.
The general strike was the second in the Twin Cities following the killing of Alex Pretty by federal immigration officials on Friday, January 30. It was reportedly organized by Somali and black student groups at the University of Minnesota. Unlike the first strike that took place last week and was supported by local unions, this Friday’s strike was organized more hastily than earlier economic blackouts. I heard murmurs of low turnout this time, which was difficult to account for by the fact that the plaza was so crowded that I couldn’t understand how more people could come. And yet Minnesotans kept coming. The light-rail car came in and through the windows I saw people inside standing shoulder to shoulder, and they came out and somehow filled the space that wasn’t there.
They chanted: “Minnesota will be no good any more, Minneapolis will be attacked.”
In contrast to the ongoing protests outside the Whipple Federal Building, the stage from which ICE agents emerge in unmarked cars to search for immigrants, the mood at the City Hall rally was almost euphoric, despite the outrage and terror present everywhere. In Whipple, people jeer and yell at federal agents and local sheriff’s deputies alike, and their taunts are often responded to with flash bangs and pepper spray. Today, there appeared to be no such threat at the City Hall rally, but if the people of Minneapolis have learned anything over the past few weeks, it’s that danger lurks around every corner. You could be sitting in your car and be killed by a federal agent. You could be under ICE surveillance and killed by a federal agent. you can protest He Committing murder and being arrested by federal agents. You’re walking or driving to work and a federal agent could pull you over. You can whistle to alert your neighbors that federal agents are snatching someone off the street, and at worst you will be pepper sprayed by a federal agent. Doctors prepared for the worst.
The helicopters kept circling overhead. Volunteer marshals wearing neon jackets stationed at almost every entrance and street corner directed the crowd. One warned me about snow; I didn’t listen to him and slipped, but a woman behind me saw me fall.
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