My goal as an organizer is to lay a foundation for future generations, the same foundation that was laid for me by our ancestors I am in no way under the impression that the work we are doing today will end with my generation. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the small victories.
— Alfreda Daniels
Beginning Life in Liberia
I am the last of eight children, and the only girl. I was born in 1991 in Monrovia Liberia, in the middle of a civil war. My father died in the war while my mother was pregnant with me. He was a medical doctor who had studied in the US, came back to Liberia to practice, and fell in love with my mom.
I had a pretty happy childhood despite the war. I got used to the frequent sound of gunshots. We didn’t have a fancy table, electricity or a TV, but we had food and a beautiful family. I was surrounded with love.
The war was between two tribes, Khran and Kio (Gio) but it affected everyone. My father was from the Kio tribe. One of my brothers was captured and forced to be a child soldier.
My mom feared they would come after me because traditionally, the child carries the father’s tribe. She decided it was time for me to leave the country. I was almost eight when I got on a bus to Cote D’ivoire, (Ivory Coast) a country east of Liberia. I stayed with a neighbor I traveled with. After three months in Ivory Coast, we went to Ghana, and settled in Bududuburam refugee camp for Liberians. I lived there with my neighbor and her son until I was fifteen.
Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana
My first organizing experience happened at the refugee camp. The United Nations would bring food and then hire Ghanians to distribute it to refugees. The distribution process was not equitable. As refugees we could not legally work in Ghana. I wondered, why didn’t they hire refugees to distribute the goods and by so doing, provide jobs for us? The UN would have these events where students would come and present their projects. I presented my idea. Shortly after, I noticed more refugees at the distribution site.
Liberians were hired to distribute the resources! That was my first win as an organizer.
I was also a victim of sexual assault while at the camp. I was nine. That experience tore me apart mentally and emotionally. I was a very active child. After the assault I slowed down a bit, became less outspoken, more embittered. I was pressured into remaining quiet about it for many years. After my mom passed away in 2017, I was inspired by the stories and strength of many women I came across through my work, to speak out about my experience.
Getting to Minnesota
At the refugee camp we were identified by nine digit numbers instead of names, like in a prison. There were boards where they posted our numbers when we were accepted by a host country. When the numbers of myself and my neighbor came up we went in for an interview. We were told the countries taking refugees were the US, Canada, Australia and Norway.
We were sent to the US through UNHCR and got placed by Lutheran Social Services in Syracuse, New York. I began school there, at Nottingham High, but my neighbor’s sister lived in Big Lake, MN and her mother was in Brooklyn Park. We moved to Minnesota to be with her family, after only three months in New York.
A few months after we arrived in Minnesota, my neighbor moved to Iowa. I was tired of moving. I stayed with her sister in Big Lake until I was ready to enroll at St. Cloud State University.
Forging A Political Path
I was always interested in politics. Being the child of an African family and the daughter of a doctor, however, I learned that if you go to college, you do so to become a doctor, nurse or engineer. Politics was not an option, especially for a female. I signed up for a Nursing degree at St. Cloud State University. I wanted to make my mom proud.
I got a job as an assistant at a nursing home with Opportunity Matters. I hated it and decided nursing was not for me. I love to help people — but that wasn’t the way I envisioned myself serving humanity. I changed my major to Political Science and International Relations without telling my mom.
Addressing the Trauma of War and Dislocation on Children
After I graduated in 2013, I went back home to Liberia to visit my mother and brothers. That was my first visit home since I left. I saw the impact of the war on my older brother who was a child soldier. He was addicted to drugs. As children we were very close. He had big visions for his future. Some of my family members didn’t want to have anything to do with him because of the stigma attached to drug addiction, but he didn’t have options. Society took him away from us. It tore me apart.
My reaction was to start an organization. Talent Emergence International has two purposes:
- To work with child soldiers in Africa and offer rehabilitation. Through my research I found that, while there was talk of psychological rehabilitation through UN programs, none of it had actually happened. I also learned that Ghana is the only country in Africa that even offers psychology courses. So, I thought, we need trained psychologists from abroad to come and offer their services, and teach psychology in our universities.
- To work in the US with teachers and schools, to provide greater insight into what kinds of challenges former child soldiers and other children of war have as refugees. They come with psychological trauma. If you don’t understand that, you are just going to create a pathway to failure for them.
I was a psychological victim. I was separated from my family as a child. I was raped. No-one in high school understood. They just saw me as this angry kid. They would take my phone away from me. They thought it was anger, but it was something else. I was frustrated that no one even tried to understand– with the exception of my high school counselor, Mrs. Patricia Morningstar.
I began working with teachers and school administrations in the St. Cloud area, talking about the impact of war on refugee kids. I presented at the annual Power in Diversity Leadership Conference on the trauma of war, and provided workshops for St. Cloud Technical College and Technical High School as well.
Fighting Ebola and Ignorance on Two Continents
When I graduated from college I realized I was a few classes away from a minor in Human Relations. I decided to pursue it. I was back in school, working on my Human Relations degree when I visited Liberia again, in 2015, right before the ebola virus hit. People in Liberia were not believing it. I tried to educate them.
When I came back, I got sick, as happens often after international travel. The way I was treated! I see why people don’t want to go to the hospital. The women at intake did not even ask if I had traveled. She asked where I was from. When I told her Liberia, she started backing up. She came back dressed in a space suit. I said what it going on? She said “Ebola.” I said, “But you didn’t even ask me if I had been traveling…”
My friends from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, — all my African immigrant friends and even some African Americans, were having similar experiences. So we created the Ebola Task Force. We collaborated with the MN African Task Force against Ebola in the Cities, to kill the myths and stereotypes.
I began volunteering with African Immigrant Services in the Osseo school district, doing presentations on ebola, and working on other education issues affecting African immigrants, like the achievement gap, driving back and forth from St. Cloud. I told one of the guys I was working with that I was looking for a job in the Cities. He told me about a position with the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation.
I knew nothing about unions. He said, “That’s OK. They are looking for a community organizer.”
Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation and Northwest Suburb Community and Labor Collective
I learned about the labor movement on the job. I began to see how everything was interconnected. The labor movement could be leveraged to do more. Why weren’t they? They have power, especially when it comes to organizing. I could see why membership was going down. They were focusing solely on labor contracts and forgetting the person as a whole.
I created the Northwest Suburb Community and Labor Collective, while working with MRLF, bringing community organizations and labor unions together, to build trust and share resources so we weren’t reinventing the wheel. And we began doing immigration work.
People involved in community groups wanted to change the face of local politics, but their 501c3 organization could not endorse candidates. Unions could. Through grassroots collaborative organizing in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center — an area of the Northwest suburbs which is 62% people of color— we elected the first city council member of color– a Hmong American– in Brooklyn Park in 2016, and a Liberian American to the Brooklyn Park Council in 2018. Last year Brooklyn Center elected a Liberian American Mayor.
The Osseo school district campaign was also one of the issues we worked on. We focused on the achievement gap, the elevated suspension rate for Black immigrants and other kids of color. We dealt with racist graffiti.
We decided that instead of working on these issues piecemeal we should find the common denominator. We came together to initiate the Local Representation Campaign to diversify the school board. We wanted to expand the number of board members and have 3 or 4 of them represent regions within the district.
The board hit back saying, “You don’t believe White people can represent Black issues?” We said, “Yes, and we also need people who can represent LGBTQ kids, Muslim kids, kids who live in poverty. We want diversity of skin tone, and mindset.”
Last year we worked hard in collaboration with the teacher’s union, endorsing four candidates. We researched the Board Chair’s Facebook page. He compared Black people to monkeys, Obama to a monkey. We fed that to the press. They went to his home to interview him, and he resigned. That was a victory.
We had four seats open last year. We endorsed four candidates, two from Maple Grove and two from Brooklyn Park. The Maple Grove candidates won. The Brooklyn Park candidates did not. There are more people in Brooklyn Park, but more people vote in Maple Grove.
One woman of color won who lives in Brooklyn Park.. They held her up as an example that the system works. Her kids are in private schools. She did not represent the interests absent from the board.
Now we are working at the state level to force the board to change the way it elects officials. I think it will pass next session. We are collecting signatures to force the district to have local representation.
My role in the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation is to create coalitions of labor and community. Some of these campaigns get personal. I came as a refugee. I know what it is like to be poor. Affordable housing is an issue for me. All my work is endorsed by the labor federation.
We are working on a livable wage campaign. We need to move beyond $15now. Fifteen an hour is not a livable wage. To find out what is a livable wage in each location you need to link it to housing costs and food prices. We are doing that research in the Northwest suburbs.
I am working on the wage theft committee in Minneapolis. I am on the labor transportation committee pushing for blue line extension into North Minneapolis and the North Suburbs. Supporting the mostly Black immigrant workers at Amazon Prime in Shakopee, who went out on a one-day strike recently, is also part of our work.
Black Immigrant Collective
In early 2016, I met with some African immigrant friends around DED, and driver’s licenses. We talked about how most of the immigration stories were Latinx focused, yet we do have undocumented people, we have people on DACA. We have Black people who deal with specific immigration issues that no-one is addressing. We formed the Black Immigrant Collective. As soon as we did, we didn’t rest. We began taking people’s cases.
For me it was easy to connect the work to my union job. The union is concerned about immigration because so many of their members are immigrants. I made it my job to make sure that whoever is lobbying for immigrants, is including Black immigrants. In our rallies I make sure there are not just chants in Spanish and English, but also Swahili, and that the stories told are Black and Asian as well as Latinx.
I am working on DED, which affects only Liberians. It is an executive order that used to get extended every eighteen months. Trump changed it to twelve months, said he would not renew. After much protest, he extended it another twelve months. That struggle is ongoing. And then of course we are working on extending DACA and supporting HR6.
Currently we are working hard to educate our community about the ICE raids — running Know Your Rights forums. We are working with educators, churches, mosques. People are reaching out to us to do this training. We do this work with very few resources.
Most sanctuary spaces are used to only receiving Latinx people. Black immigrants have called us from these sanctuary spaces, reporting racism. We are working with these churches to provide racial training. If you choose to be a sanctuary church your intentions are good, you just need training. The discrimination is also happening amongst immigrants. There is anti-Blackness in the Latinx community.
We are working with interested Black Churches to see if they are qualified to become a sanctuary space, and looking for lawyers who are equipped to connect with and represent Black immigrants.
In this climate, the immigration struggle is different day by day. Yesterday is not the same as today. Tomorrow there will be a new issue.
Much of our work is local, but we are connected to national networks: UndocuBlack and Black Alliance For Just Immigration (BAJI.) When I go to DC I also meet with the union nationals like SEIU and Unite HERE.
Recognition from Outside and Within of my Community
I have received recognition. Mark Dayton put me on his Board of Electricity. I was given the Emerging Legend award at the interfaith MLK breakfast in 2019. These are exciting honors. However it is the recognition from the Liberian community that I am most proud of, because it shows their trust in me. In March of 2019, I was given the “Community Crusader” Award at the Liberian Entertainment Awards Ceremony. I also received the Making A Difference (MAD) Award from Liberian Girls Rock. It is significant that my community is elevating young women such as myself.
Looking toward the future
My personal goals include becoming a lawyer. I am in the process of starting a family. My boyfriend and I talk about how we will juggle law school, kids and work.
My goal as an organizer is to lay a foundation for future generations, the same foundation that was laid for me by our ancestors I am in no way under the impression that the work we are doing today will end with my generation. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the small victories. For example, gays now have the right to marry, but that doesn’t mean homophobia is over. We need to prepare the future generation to take on the work. My goal is to illuminate those tiny victories and plan for the future. Nothing is ever done perfect. This is not Disneyland. This is life.
A week after our interview, Alfreda publicly announced her intention to run for Brooklyn Center City Council in 2020.
Response to Murder of George Floyd: Minneapolis Uprising
When there were no cameras, you said we were over reacting (conspiracy theory). Now we have video proof, you are asking for more evidence. When we give more, you tell us how hard it is to be an officer.
Give me your badge and take my skin tone for a day.
We kneel- you complain (it’s not patriotic).We put our hands up- you shoot. We run, you shoot. You come into our homes and kill us. We peacefully March , you complain. We say black lives matter, you say white lives matter too.
Everyday, we struggle to breathe. We are being suffocated by the system. We can’t breathe.
I’m tired.
If you are white and uncomfortable by this rebellion, get mad and use your privilege to change it.
#ICantBreathe
Minneapolis Interview Project Explained.