I discovered that the farther you go up in management, the less chance people look like me, the less chance you have someone who has had to worry about where to sleep; the less chance they have a lived-experience concerning the policies they are making.
—Angela Conley
Mississippi and Oklahoma Roots
My mom’s family came to Minnesota from Jackson, Mississippi when she was five; part of that whole great migration. Some cousins went to Chicago. We kept going North, landed in Minneapolis. Grandma eventually moved to California. I have childhood memories of visiting her. She had lemon trees in her backyard! We didn’t have those in Minnesota.
My dad’s family came from Oklahoma. My uncle told me we have Choctaw roots. My sister and I have tried to figure out: where in Oklahoma do both Black folks and Choctaw live? Dad’s parents settled in St. Paul. When I was growing up, they rarely came to Minneapolis to visit us. We crossed the river to visit them.
My dad’s parents were Pastors and they traveled to other churches in the region. My dad was in the church choir. One of my fondest memories is hearing my dad sing to my mom in the living room. I was about eight. The most beautiful sound I have ever heard in my life.
Mom and Dad met in the 1960s when his church choir visited my mom’s church. Mom remained heavily involved in her church– a Pentecostal old school Baptist church in South Minneapolis.
I was born in the hospital that is now Abbott Northwestern in Phillips neighborhood and came home to place just blocks from where I now live on Oakland Avenue. I was one when we moved to the Fulton neighborhood.
Living by the Lake
My dad was in the Navy in Vietnam. Through the GI Bill, he got housed walking distance from Bde Maka Ska. I think that is why, as an adult, I love being by the water. I loved playing at the Lake. It was a world of freedom and fun.
There weren’t very many people of color in that neighborhood. We were one of two Black families. My friends growing up didn’t look like me. We were used to that. These were my friends. My friend’s parents were welcoming and nice to me. Nobody ever brought up race or said I couldn’t play there.
Once, I was out, playing on bikes with my really good friend. I fell and skinned my knee. Underneath the skin when you scrape a knee your muscle is white. She said, “Oh my gosh, you are white underneath your skin! You could peel your skin and look like me!”
That is my first memory of understanding race, when first I encountered that we were different. It was that moment of skinning my knee. I probably went home and told my mom — though I don’t remember how she responded.
I went to Fulton Elementary — (now Lake Harriet lower) until I was eleven. It was majority White and middle class. My parents split up when I was eleven, and I moved with my mother to the Midtown Phillips neighborhood.
Moving to Phillips Neighborhood
Moving into a different neighborhood coincided with entering Middle school. That was a culture shock. Anwatin was 50% kids of color–Black, Hmong and White–and more urban than Fulton, which was majority White. They said I talked funny. I didn’t understand what they meant at first. They meant I sounded White. Kids made fun of the way I dressed and wore my hair. I had a jheri curl at the time— the 80s fallback Black hairstyle. I wanted to fit in, but I didn’t spend birth to 7th grade in an urban working class neighborhood. I asked my mom for my first pair of Nikes.
I was comforted that the neighborhood looked like me. But school was hard. Most of my Fulton friends went to Anthony. It took a whole year before I felt comfortable.
For high school I went to Edison. At that time you had a choice of magnet schools. I wanted to go to the business program. I thought I wanted to be a CEO of a corporation. As I grew, I realized that was NOT what I wanted to do. But I had this idea then, I wanted to be a leader and thought that was the way to do it.
So I was bused, South to Northeast. I started singing in the choir in 9th grade and those students became my friends. Several people I still know now — we met in choir. I had found my people. One of my best friends was a girl I clashed with the first month of school. There was a showdown: the music stopped, words were exchanged, and then we became best friends. We held on to each other.
A Closeted Nerd
I tried out for basketball and failed miserably, but I got into cheerleading. I had always had issues with my weight. People teased me about being the heaviest cheerleader, so I was in this popular cheerleading group— but on the outside. They’d say “you shouldn’t wear that skirt. I’d wear leggings under my skirt. But I persevered.
I was voted “most talkative” in high school. I always loved learning about people. I had an ability to connect with everyone, because I was funny. I used humor to make friends. I told jokes. I think that is what drew people to me. “Angela will make you crack up.”
I was a nerd— but closeted. The business classes were computer courses. There was also a cosmetology magnet. People learned hair cutting. I did typing, coding, played Oregon trail on an ancient IBM. I took many typing tests and learned some now extinct coding languages.
I failed my gym class and they weren’t going to allow me to graduate because of it. I petitioned my counselor. I said “I was a cheerleader for three years. That should be a gym credit.” Maybe I learned some negotiating skills in one of my business classes. I got the gym credit.
Moorhead State
I applied to Howard, Moorhead State, and the U. of M. I wanted to go to Howard, a historically Black college with a great marching band! I thought I did pretty well on my ACT. My GPA was 3.6. I was devastated when I got my denial letter. The U did not accept me either.
Moorhead State said “Welcome.” It didn’t occur to me to apply anywhere else. I had never been up to the North Dakota border. We took a choir trip once to Fergus Falls, to sing in a nursing home. That was the farthest North I’d been.
Another culture shock. Moorhead was a small town. There was a Walgreens. I’d cross over the Red River and get to North Dakota on my bike. Fargo’s downtown was a little bigger. The land was flat. Nothing there! The town and campus were 2% black. I joined the Black Student Union to find other people like me. Most of the Black folks came to play football or basketball with the Moorhead Dragons.
Racism Among Classmates
My roommate Sara was from a small town in South Dakota. We learned from each other. I loved Tupac. She loved Marty Robbins. I introduced her to Me Against the World. She had me listen to A White Sport Coat and a Pink Carnation. We were sharing our music, our stuff. I heard her stories. She never lived around black folks. She told me ,“We thought black people had tails. We thought you were monsters.” I thought about it. I wasn’t really taught any bad stuff about her people — except what you learn in school about slavery. It was a really important experience in my life.
Moorhead was the first time I heard a white person use “nigger.” I was at a party. I was the only Black person there. The TV was on. It was the night Tupac was killed. I was glued to the news. Tupac was in the hospital! I loved Tupac! I had seven Tupac album covers taped to the closet of my dorm room. I was walking past this group of white girls and heard one say to the other: “Do I look like a nigger to you.” They didn’t know I was there. I tapped her on the shoulder and said “Hi”
She turned beat red and began gushing apologies. I didn’t know how to take that. “Why are you so sorry? You didn’t know I would hear?”
I left after that.
Introduction to African American Literature
I became extremely interested in my culture as soon as I entered college. I had been taking classes. I knew our history. I had an African-American literature class and discovered, we are literary geniuses. I fell in love with Gwendolyn Brooks, and Maya Angelou. I understood how we had embraced the N word — dropped off the e-r. Hearing it from a white person for the first time, I didn’t know how to respond — except to tap that shoulder and say, “I’m here.”
The second year was really different. After that experience I sort-of shut down. I had a room to myself. I had one friend from the cities and I would sometimes drive home with her. Four of us in a pick-up. Other times I’d take the Greyhound home. I saw the northern lights on one of those trips, out in the fields where it was pitch black. It was always beautiful coming home. Watching the stars.
I had lost a lot of weight because I was always on my bike. When I came home people would say “Wow – what are you doing up there?” I was doing well in my classes. It looked like I was thriving, but I wasn’t.
Entering Adulthood and Parenthood in Minneapolis
I knew I couldn’t stay there. I came home after my sophomore year, got a job at Office Max, found an apartment at 14th and Portland for $300 a month. There was a big gang presence there, but it was something I could afford. I had a lizard. It died. I bought two love birds at the pet store. They were supposed to be male and female, but the guy sold me two males. They fought and killed each other. Never buy pets at a pet store.
I met my older children’s father while I was living there. He rang every buzzer in my apartment building until he found me. I was 20. That relationship moved really fast. That was me entering adulthood. I had my son when I was 22. I started working in Dayton’s distribution center as a receptionist.
We didn’t grow up learning about contraception. I have been very candid with my kids, even as early as ten. I told my daughter about her period well before time. My mom never talked to me. Parenthood was a surprise.
My mom’s best friend was so angry with me — “Are you going to have a bunch of babies and embarrass your mom? Why did you drop out of college?”
After I had my son, my daughter was coming. I hid the pregnancy for five months, wearing baggy clothes. I was embarrassed to be having another one so soon.
Lowest Time of My Life
My relationship became extremely violent. I was working at a call center. I had pictures of him and my babies in the cubical. This girl came in and pointed at the pictures. “Is that your family?” Everyone else in the office knew he was also seeing this girl. I had no idea.
I put him out. He was very angry and kicked in my window. That was the first time in my life I experienced violence from someone I loved. It was emotional, psychological and physical violence. I knew I never wanted to see him again. I moved to Richfield for a short stint. The kids were two and three. I had a girlfriend at work who told me what to do. “Get a restraining order. Go to court for child support.”
I had wanted the husband, children and picket fence. But here I was, two babies, technically homeless, on food assistance, and in court for child support. The lowest time of my life.
I did not grow up impoverished. My mom overcompensated. At Christmas she would fill the entire front porch with presents. Thanksgiving everyone came — even those relatives on the other side of the river, to get mom’s sweet potato pie, greens and ham. When Guess jeans came out, we had Guess jeans. We looked like we had it all. Mom worked overtime to make that happen. Being on welfare was new to me. I didn’t know it was a full-time job to be poor, that people talk down to you.
On the Other Side of The Welfare Counter
When the kids were four and five, I found a townhouse that was part of a coop, income-based on Chicago Avenue and I began working at Hennepin County as a financial worker, making $12, which in 2000 was good money. I could support my kids on it. Now I was on the other side of the counter, processing applications for welfare, helping women who were single parents running away from abusive partners, or finding themselves with an unexpected pregnancy needing assistance, or homeless, living out of someone’s basement. I took the work personally. To me it was about changing people’s lives. Because everybody who comes in to apply for assistance is in a place in their lives that they don’t want to be. I took the stories of the women I served home with me. It took a toll. I worked there for five years before I took a promotion to go to the state.
Parenthood with Planning
Around that time I met my ex-husband. My kids were six and seven. We were together ten years. He stepped in and helped me raise my younger children. We met when I was in the elevator. I was exhausted. He said I was gorgeous. He swept me off my feet. We listened to 1990s hip hop music together. We both had this thing for music.
I was hesitant to have him meet my kids. I had gained control. They were starting school. I was working hard to make sure they had everything: ballet, cheerleading, karate, soccer.
He was from the southside of Chicago and had a rough upbringing. We held on to each other, though our experiences were different. He treated my kids like were his own. He was a good human being.
My daughter Ava was a planned child. I was thirty-four. I knew so much more. I read baby books, took classes, joined a Facebook group with women who were due at the same time. We posted pictures of our growing bellies and supported each other. I was also excited about Benjamin, my youngest.
Social Work and Public Administration
I took care of my kids and was the breadwinner, but my ex-husband was key in my completing my education, taking care of the kids so I could go to class.
When I went back to college, I was working as an auditor of food support cases, to see if people were getting accurate benefits. I realized I wanted to do something bigger. I registered for creative writing classes at the U of M, before finding the social work program at St. Kates. Evenings and weekends .
The social justice principles of that social work program spoke to my soul. I interned at a homeless shelter and taught English to newly-arriving immigrants. After graduating in 2013, I took a year off and then went back to school for my Masters in Public Administration at Hamline. I wanted to directly affect the problems we addressed in social work. So now I have 90,000 in education debt. I cashed out my pension to get my education.
Looking at Policy through a Kalief Browder Lens
My capstone at Hamline focused on not charging Juveniles as adults. I did research on brain development, learned how we are not fully developed until we are 24. I wrote about Kalief Browder, the African-American teenager falsely accused of stealing a backpack, who ended up at Rikers Island, and committed suicide after he was finally freed. There are so many policy changes we need, like ending cash bail — it’s unconstitutional. The desire to make those changes kept me motivated as I worked toward those two degrees. I knew I wanted to do something at a macro level.
I discovered that the farther you go up in management, the less chance people look like me, the less chance you have someone who has had to worry about where to sleep, the less chance they have a lived-experience concerning the policies they are making.
Somewhere in my education I learned the term “wicked problems,” referring to the cascade of problems brought on by poverty, like a lack of food and housing. The argument was: these are not problems government can solve.
I don’t accept that.
Identifying as a Survivor
For a long time it was really hard to talk about how toxic my relationship was. My husband and I got divorced. The picket fence was my dream. He was fine with the way things were. It was a hard and violent goodbye. I went through a really bad depression. I would not leave my room. We ate pizza every night. I gained 40 pounds. Went to work when I had to and went right back into my room.
We have both grown. Now it is just about the kids. I like that. He remains a fantastic father to this day, for all of the kids. Sees them regularly. This is much better.
It took me a long time to say I am a survivor. I didn’t do it until my campaign for Hennepin County Commissioner. Now I can actually speak out for women who have been in these relationships. At 40 I feel free to express myself. When you are controlled, you tone it down. Now there is this freedom. I can say “this is an injustice” without feeling the need to censor myself. I can to go the protest. I can wear my afro out and feel great about it. I have learned so much from a network of women who have gone through similar things. I can speak out for myself and for them — for all women who are survivors. Women who are homeless, women fleeing violence.
Neighborhood Organizing
I had been a supervisor at the state, but my roots have always been in community.
As a renter, and someone in a violent relationship, I moved around a lot. For a while I lived in Kingfield; one of two Black families in the surrounding blocks. It was a good place. But when we moved back across the freeway, I fell in love with Bryant.
First of all, we finally had the four bedrooms and two bathrooms we needed. We had a big deck and a beautiful yard. Now everyone in the family could have their own room.
I immediately fell in love with the diversity of Bryant. On my block there are Black folks, White folks, a Native American family, an Asian American, family, a Mexican family. People of different ages. We moved in May, so people were outside. We danced in our living room to music coming from the Mexican family across the street. We participated in National night out. It was beautiful.
Bryant Neighborhood the 38th Street South Corridor
I decided I needed to learn about this neighborhood, because I wasn’t leaving. I found the Bryant neighborhood organization website and showed up at a meeting. I felt comfortable there. It was going through a reorganization. I wanted to be a part of it. Not long after that, they voted me President of the Board. I said “Cool. Let’s get to work.”
It’s a small neighborhood — 38th to 42nd, Chicago Avenue to the Freeway, but it’s dense with people and it’s beautiful. Two years later I am still Board President.
Bryant has one of the first integrated blocks in the city of Minneapolis.There was a specific real estate agent who opened up those homes to Black families in the early 1950s and some of those families still live there. That is really important. We are trying to hold on to the historical integrity of the neighborhood. Now the neighborhood is changing demographically. Gentrification is hitting. The house behind mine flipped and doubled in price.
Public Safety Rooted in Community Wellbeing
We have people who are most concerned about “crime” and are really quick to call the police on kids that are being kids in the summer. We had some high-profile shootings across Chicago Avenue. “Gunshots or fireworks?” is a common post on the neighborhood Facebook group. I get it. Safety is a big issue, but I want to change the narrative to social justice as safety.
For me, if I hear a POP, I’m not going on Facebook to ask if that was a gunshot or a firecracker, because when I lived on 34th and Chicago I heard my fair share of gunshots. I know the difference. I had one ricochet off the handicapped parking sign in my lot. That close. Gun violence was normalized for me to a certain degree. What I will do is listen for a scream. Or I will listen for screeching tires.
We are creating a “Committee on Social Justice and Safety” so we can continue to have those discussions about how not to stereotype Black youth, while keeping our neighbors safe. If you moved here because you wanted to be in the city, embrace that. In the city you have some violence, but we can’t let it define our area.
I’m also pulling together a community engagement subcommittee. We have a neighborhood garden. I envision neighborhood potlucks, community clean-ups. I loved Kingfield’s neighborhood yard sale. We need to do that.
We don’t need a neighborhood grounded in surveillance. We need to be a neighborhood grounded in community. That is what will make us safer.
Gentrification is Personal
My mom lived in an apartment building on 28th and 10th Avenue. It used to be all Black folks and Native Americans. It is the same apartment where I spent my teen years. My first babies lived in that apartment. A few years ago the demographics of the apartment started to change. Two years ago her rent went up $100 bucks. New management came. The next year it went up twice, a $300 rise, total. The Native woman next door who was her good friend, moved out. The building filled up with young White couples with dogs.
She wasn’t going to leave. She wasn’t officially retired yet. But, then she got a notice to vacate. At one point she had signed a month-to-month lease. She was trusting. Didn’t think anything of it. I tried to fight it. I was calling media, tagged our City Council person in Facebook posts, I called the manager, saying, “What are you doing? Mom has been here 30 years. Long term tenants are good for landlords.” I was going to make flyers and let her young neighbors know, but mom didn’t want to do it. She moved in with me.
People have a right to age in place. We don’t want to be priced out of our neighborhoods. We need maximums on how much landlords can raise the rent. We need property tax relief for low-income homeowners. We need to allow people to prepare. As a lifelong renter and someone who has experienced homelessness, I know these issues.
Leading By Listening to Those Affected By Policy
This is what I lived. My truth is probably someone else’s right now. I like to be led by those who are affected by policy. Let them guide that conversation. When we tap into people directly affected, we come up with solutions that work.
