How Jamar Clark’s Death Changed Minneapolis

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Remembering Jamar Clark

Minneapolis will commemorate a sad and painful anniversary this weekend. Ten years ago, on November 15, 2015, Minneapolis police shot and killed Jamar Clark in north Minneapolis. MPR looks back on that event today in multiple features, examining how this killing galvanized local activists and changed how prosecutors dealt with charges against the police. 

After Clark, 24, was killed, hundreds gathered in protest outside the 4th Precinct in Minneapolis, marched to the Government Center, and shut down Interstate 94. Coming a year after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the rise of the Black Lives Matter, this was a kind of response that Minneapolis had not seen before.

Jon Collins speaks to Nekima Levy Armstrong (who was head of the Minneapolis NAACP at the time) and Jeremiah Ellison (before his tenure as a city council member), two people involved in the protest at the time, as well as getting historical perspective from U of M professor Michelle Phelps. Nina Moini talked to Tiffany Burns, one of Clark’s sisters. And Brandt Williams speaks to Armstrong and former NAACP communications director Raeisha Williams.

Starbucks Strike!

Minneapolis and Chanhassen Starbucks workers are among those taking part in a 65-store, 40+-city Unfair Labor Practice strike. The action kicked off on Thursday, or "Red Cup Day," when the coffee chain starts its holiday sales, but workers are considering this an indefinite strike—so put down those peppermint lattes, caffeine fiends.

“If Starbucks keeps stonewalling a fair contract and refusing to end union-busting, they’ll see their business grind to a halt,” says Michelle Eisen, Starbucks Workers United spokesperson, in a statement. “No contract, no coffee is more than a tagline—it’s a pledge to interrupt Starbucks operations and profits until a fair union contract and an end to unfair labor practices are won. Starbucks knows where we stand."

There's more info, including a map of striking Starbucks locations and a pledge supporting workers, on the No Contract, No Coffee website.

Did You Know MN Has a State Photo?

Well we do, apparently. It's called Grace, it features a man with his head bowed and hands clasped in prayer in front of food and what appears to be a Bible, and... if I'm being honest, looking at it in this WCCO story, I would have thought it was a painting.

But it's not! For 'CCO, John Lauritsen explains that Grace was captured in 1918 by photographer and Swedish immigrant Eric Enstrom, who took a series of photos of fellow Swedish immigrant Charles Wilden. "People instantly fell in love with the image, and it spread across the country," Lauritsen writes. "It became a national symbol of prayer and hope during World War I."

Confusingly, St. Paul's Augsburg Publishing eventually got the rights to the picture and "made it look more like a painting," according to the story, which I don't really understand—but whatever! You're reading this blurb because in the year 2000, Gov. Jesse Ventura and lawmakers pushed for Grace to become the state photograph; the bill passed unanimously, making Minnesota the sole state U.S. with an official state photograph.

The kicker is that Wilden, a salesman, signed away his rights to the photo for just $5 in 1927.

What's the Worst Seat at U.S. Bank Stadium?

TikToker attheballpark (real name Cameron Guzzo) is on a mission to find the worst seat at every major league sports stadium, which is exactly the kind of stunt journalism completionism that's catnip to your pals at Racket. The latest in his "cheap seat" series takes Guzzo to downtown Minneapolis's own U.S. Bank Stadium, the fourth-newest NFL stadium, where... well, he struggles to find a bad seat in the house.

The seat critic arrives at two "worst" seats at U.S. Bank, both in section 301: row E, seat 1, which has its view of the end zone partially blocked by a giant viking horn; and row 2, seat 1, which has its view obstructed by a glass window and handrail. However, we'd argue that the worst seats at the Vikings' stadium aren't those with obstructed views—they're the ones where you need to bring sunglasses or risk being blinded by the light streaming in, or the ones where the sound is somehow distorted in such a way that it makes you physically nauseous. (Has anyone done science to figure out how that happens?)

And then, of course, to quote the top commenter on the video, "Not bad seats but then you have to watch the Vikings..."