As United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues its crackdown across the state of Minnesota following the death of local woman Renee Good, a growing resistance movement has blossomed.
With communities rallying to feed and fundraise for neighbors, and the organization of a statewide general strike planned for Friday, January 23, locals are showing up for one another with resilience and love.
But many are still turning to elected officials like Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to help shepherd them through a particularly dark time.
On January 20, seemingly as part of the Free America Walkout, crowds of protestors and supporters convened outside of the Governor’s mansion, where Walz and his wife, Gwen, stepped outside to speak with the constituents.
“Thank you for coming out in the cold,” Walz spoke into a megaphone shared by a member of the crowd.
He wore a red flannel and beanie, using the gate of the property as something of a soapbox.
“Thank you for standing up for our neighbors who don’t have a fence and who don’t have people to take them around and don’t have lawyers to defend them,” Walz continued.
In a video shared by a member of the crowd, people could be heard cheering, bundled in mittens and parkas, as they responded with their own “thank yous” to the governor.
“These are the moments for people to stand up. These are the moments that are not the easy one, but these are the moments where character comes out,” Walz continued.
The same day, he and other Minnesota officials were subpoenaed by the Department of Justice in a probe alleging that the state officials “conspired to impede law enforcement” amid the ongoing ICE crackdown.
Still, Walz made it clear where he stood, sharing a story from his time in Congress.
“I served on the China Commission in Congress — ironically enough, as co-chair with Marco Rubio — but we used to bring in Chinese political prisoners, and we would ask them, ‘When we speak up and call out your government, is it bad?’ and they said, ‘Well, in the short run it’s bad because they torture us, but if you don’t speak up, they will torture us and forget about us,” Walz said, to a rapt audience.
“The idea right now is that we have to be speaking up. We have to call it out.”
Last week, Walz shared a statement urging protestors to remain peaceful in Minnesota, and he continued to share that sentiment again here.
“I can’t stress enough on this; We’re winning it because we’re doing it with Minnesota grit, Minnesota humor, Minnesota decency,” he said. “I spent a lot of time with John Lewis on nonviolent resistance. The resistance matters. We’re not telling people to be silent, but we’re not telling people to go out and cause problems; We’re going to cause good trouble.”
The “good trouble” concept was a cornerstone of Lewis’s civil rights activism and legislative career, and represented a call to action for peaceful, yet disruptive, protest against injustice.
“We have children having to hide in their home,” Walz said, adding that he recently visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and that going there “felt like a warning.”
“I keep reminding people this: Everything that happened during that time was done legally, much like Jim Crow … but the people who were helping Anne Frank, they were the ones breaking the law.”
Then, he addressed the crowd: “For all of you on this … you know what’s right. You know what your neighbors are going through.”
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Header image courtesy of Colleen Bayer/TikTok
