Funding for Intersections is bro and Cultural Heritage Fund, and - My name is Carla Hamilton and I'm an artist and an activis I was born in Duluth and I grew up in Wrenshall.

My mom's an artist.

She put paper on the walls, so his kids can draw on the walls and such.

And I didn't really act on it until I got older, my son was probably about eight.

And then I went to school, and that gave me the confidence "I'm okay at this."

I went to art school in Stuttgart, Germany.

I learned a discipline.

I learned how to work really wel with my style of working.

And it was my first step at art I don't know, some people kind of give you a h for going to school for art.

How that's a waste of time and that's a waste of money and you're a bad artist.

And I'm glad I did, at least for that little time I We're in Germany and my professors were Russian, very strict disciplines of art and very traditional ideas of art, I would say.

They're like, "Carla, what's tha I'm like, "That's just how I fee My interpretation of it.

It wasn't difficult, but it was hard to stay in that in the lines all the time.

And I was really happy when I wa I'm like, "Oh, I could do whatev "plus what I've learned."

I was there for about two years.

It was very structured.

I think for a person like me, I needed that.

I'm more disciplined than I think I would've been if I hadn't done that.

I know I drove my teacher's nuts Cause I was like, "Oh, why can w "And why can't we do this?"

Cuz I like mixing a lot of different techniques together.

"Bubbles in My Head" is the name of that piece.

I made that while I was actually in school.

That's a paper collage, and I was having just a mental b I was getting divorce.

That one was really important to That's when I realized that I was really good at art.

And that maybe I couldn't say wo but I could say through my art, and show through my art.

I knew I was different.

I knew I could do things just be only painting only sketching, which are great crafts in themse But I made that with paper and s and I was like, "Oh I like different kinds of art," and it works too.

I work at all times of the day.

I didn't want an external space because sometimes I work really late at night.

Anything bigger, I plan for the and I do it in my garage or I spray paint outside.

I do a lot of collages, so I need a lot of magazines.

I'll dye, cloth, just free like And this is all food coloring.

And I have all my trays ready.

I have masks.

What else?

I have buttons.

So everything's just kind of...

I have a bag of money here somew shredded money.

I even use some of my hospital records in my work.

So I use everything.

But for me, everything has its p I can work about two hours a day, on a good day.

But I think I've cranked out some pretty amazing art, between this and my garage.

Now I'm trying to live as a working artist, as a lot of my friends are.

My son graduated from high schoo He's since moved out, and now I'm actually taking that trying to make most of my income through art.

And I do love my art community h And it's really a close knit com and just very helpful and supportive with each other.

And so I don't think I'd be as successful without them.

And I know that since I've been it seems to really have grown.

I'd say the BIPOC artist community in this area has created its own space.

And kind of had to push our way to do that.

But I think by our competence and our level of work, we've shown we're good.

So just creating our own space cuz it wasn't always given to us And that we're not necessarily only doing things about the lake and a raccoon or pine trees or landscape, which there's nothing wrong with but we're doing different kinds And some people are really...

They've been kind of hesitant, like, "I don't want you in my ga So, we just make our own shows.

And it's been really nice being part of that, that change.

And one of my favorite galleries is the Pr øve Gallery.

They do community involvement, and you can take classes there.

And I've had my most successful shows there.

My partner, Joshua Williams, took that right down the street.

It was a fun photo shoot, cause I tried to get the police to come down the slide.

I was gonna catch 'em and so it was so funny(laughs) I was walking down the street, and two of my friends, with me.

They walked in front of me and I was back a little bit and dug through my purse.

And sometimes I explain, well there was a party going on over there, but I'm not gonna explain that.

I'm just like, "This is what I w And all of a sudden there's a police officer in my face.

One police car was there, he said, "Are you bothering thes My friend I'm like, "These are m "I'm just looking at my purse."

"Were you screaming?"

I'm like, "No."

And they kept asking me my name.

And then another car showed up.

I'm like, "What is going on?

"I'm just walking out with my fr I just put my hands in my head, I'm like, "Oh my God."

And then the third car shows up for me and I wasn't doing anythi Cause I was frightened, I was in I was having a panic attack.

My brain's pumping and it just escalated like that, and it scared the hell outta me, that made me angry.

And then they kept asking me my over and over and over, and I kept spelling it for them.

And all I'm thinking is, "God, who's gonna take care of m "and do I have bail money?"

And then before, you know it they're all talking to each othe and they got another call I thin And they ended up just leaving.

And I just stood there like this and I felt exhausted when it was It really scared me.

And I requested the body cam foo which they made complicated, which I had to pay for.

And then we had mediation with two of those officers.

And we were trying to explain to the police officers why that was so terrifying.

And one was really like, "I'm so "it shouldn't have escalated, I'm still training."

And he was younger and he was ap and we ended up actually making There was another one who didn't wanna talk about any improvement, that anything escalated or any wrong was done.

And even Mike said to us, "That's the kind of officer we d "we don't want him."

It was really humbling, to talk about that experience in We don't want it to happen to anybody else.

We want these officers to know, how that impacts a person.

That impacted my whole family.

And things like that have happen but impacts everybody.

And it's frightening, walking somewhere and you don't feel safe all the time, that takes a toll on somebody.

In regards to that photo, I don't feel the same as I did when I made that show.

That history was to create an Al between the BIPOC community and the police department.

And I don't feel a lot changed i time between then and now.

I find that unfortunate.

So I feel differently about that then as I do now.

I try to be very involved in my community any way I can, through art or volunteering or organizing or making space for people who don't feel comfor I think my art is a part of acti cuz it does talk about things that make people uncomfortable.

So it creates discussion, it creates conversation and hopefully it'll create chang My goals are to have bigger exhi and bigger installations.

I like installations and just keep growing.

I'm glad I didn't take early on some opportunities, that I'm glad I didn't react to because I don't think I was read I think I'm where, right now is And so I just wanna keep going up and up and up and up.

Yeah, I think it's going to happ if I stay at the pace that I am at, right now.

(gentle music) - I'm Anja Chávez.

I'm the Director at the Tweed Museum of Art.

I have a master's degree and PhD My education took place in Germa at the University of Bonn, as well as in Paris at the State University École Normale Supérieure Sorbonne Carte in Paris.

That made me a art historian.

I'm a product from 100% public e which I'm very proud of.

For becoming a curator, you had to have a PhD.

So you had to take classes depen on which field you wanted to do, but you had to have an education all the way around.

So I did archeology, I did histo I also was studying across the b a little bit in comparative lite but the focus was on art history And then, within art history, yo to make sure that you covered all the periods.

Matter of fact, some of the test towards the end were that you we given postcards that were facing and you could choose them, 10 of but then you had to really say, what is it?

You know, if it's a true work, is it authentic, is it a fake, and what century is it, and what are we looking at?

So you had to do Renaissance, as well as medieval times, Byzan contemporary 20th century, depending on what you wanted to And some of those classes actually took place in museums.

Well, I've been living in the United States since the mid-90's.

I mean, in a way, I think everyb brings a different perspective.

Is the perspective of the person who's coming from the outside be than the perspective of the pers who's from here?

Not necessarily.

But I think it's more maybe what we can do together.

It's never about one person.

What you see here on display, it's not all my work.

Some of it might be an idea, but with the team, working with community members.

I have to say my colleague, the late Karissa White Isaacs, who was also a PhD, passed away tragically mid-December.

So, she has been the curator her at the Tweed, and in that capaci she did the curatorial work.

So, it was her idea and her plan to work with Jonathan Thunder, and she did.

So, the outcome that you see is what she put in place.

And she had worked with Jonathan Because a museum is there for pe it's not an outcome of one perso Every city is different.

Every community is different.

And that's what I think makes it so exciting.

No museum is exchangeable, not j because their collections are di but also because their needs are totally different.

Well, the idea was to discuss it with the communities, which I di So, I brought to their attention that we had an opportunity to pi or borrow that particular exhibi from the Delaware art museum, and in borrowing it from the Delaware art museum, co by grant funds, we could go in f that would cover the salaries for two coordinators and cover s for, at the time being 10, commu committee members to give us inp Because I didn't want to determi nor anybody else on my staff, wh be done or can be done, even tho we potentially could, but moving from how museums traditionally have done their business, towards how museums should be wo and not just including voices, but basically, in a way, sitting back and liste It's more voices, not just to be and to listen to, but also ways of making a change, ways of doin differently to include more and more democratic and progressive.

We're part of the University, and being part of the University, we're an academic museum, we're a teaching museum.

So whether you have temporary ex that are, let's say, curated by or curated by faculty in conjunc with students, they're there for everybody.

They're certainly extremely help for curriculum-based teaching, but they're also incredibly relevant for our comm such as Black Survival Guide.

I had responses or received resp from community members, how important that exhibition was.

I think it's enriching to have a of that way, with dual legs, the teaching academic side and the community side.

I was told by students, they tol given the Black Survival Guide e they were able to actually talk with their white peers about top that otherwise they didn't think they could really approach.

So, I thought that was really enriching for me to know.

We live in really more than just challenging times.

I think, it's not just the last It's not just the pandemic.

It's the war in Ukraine, it's a lot of things going on.

When you think about all of the in the upheaval you have seen, Minneapolis, social injustice, there's a lot that is happening.

Could museums do a better job in being more inclusive?

That has been talked about for d Could staff be more diversified?

Could there be more non-white fe or other, you know, leaderships, in leadership positions?

Could you have a more diverse bo Could you reach to those kind of to make a difference, or wanting to make a change?

Or should the museum try to help right now in these times, indivi to cope with situations in terms of mental issues.

You know, there's a lot that has been talked about, and I think museum can do all of the above.

You can come to museums and trul what you see and just enjoy the You can come to museums and look at it and have a fantastic discussion about topics.

So I do think that we have a hug on our communities, because I th are the only museum with that so of a fine arts collection within a larger range, and we know whom we are serving.

But that being said, we as a mus need also to learn more about what community members are wishing, not just to see on but what are they wishing us to do for them?

And that's the listening part th in general need to do more of.

And that's the, you know, getting away from the more tradi how museums have done the busine and making sure that museums rem relevant to their communities.

(soft piano keys playing) - [Announcer] Next up, we have Classie Dudley.

- I'm the president of the Duluth NAACP here.

We're the largest chapter in the state of Minnesota.

With over 1400 members, we reach Duluth, the Twin Ports all the way up to the Canadian b so we fight for y'all.

I'm a product of Duluth.

I was born and raised here.

We often think that like Duluth is this great place for everybody.

We're so welcoming here we're Minnesota nice and I personally experienced discrimination.

I personally was told like I would never graduate or be an A student.

My dad used to work for the human resources department of ISD 709.

He would walk in, in a suit and I would be there with him and kids would think that he was because the kids there had never seen a black man in a suit before, when we left and moved to Texas and I'd did a couple years in Te within high school, even though I'm sure the structu and barriers are still present, at least I was around people that looked like me.

There was black doctors there, there were black lawyers.

I was really influenced and inspired by all these people that were doing influential things in the community.

And when I came back to Duluth, I didn't see any of that.

The only depiction of a black person in our city is the Clayton Jackson McGhie Me While it's important to know tha it depicts a very a traumatic and horrific event in history.

Not many people know that during the Clayton Jackson McGhie lynchings, when they drug three black men out of the jail cell and hung them in the middle of t that that's when the NAACP start (soft piano keys playing) A little over a year ago, I was elected into this position.

The inequity's that I've experienced, haven't gone away they've actually amplified, we get a lot of rapid response c with our schools right here and schools in the surrounding area of inequities of disproportionate suspension and expulsion rates.

And it's such a complex system, and it's such a system that takes a lot of time to push on it but I try to emphasize that we don't have this luxury o People are really being affected in real time take Denfeld High School Calenda where it's pretty bare.

You take East High School Calend where they're having all these college visits, right?

I wanna highlight these inequiti because it's something that Duluth doesn't think about because for the white students, the white students are fine.

But if you're looking at kids of if you're looking at kids that are coming in low income if we're failing one student, we're failing them all.

And we're not talking about millions of students.

We're not talking about thousands of students, right?

We're talking about a couple hundred of students.

If we're talking about over a four year period, that's a hundred percent fixable That's the stuff that the NAACP hasn't covered and are trying to focus on restorative justice tactics and changing how we're viewing certain things and how we don't need to be such a punitive society.

(soft instrumental music) So that was a mess (laughs).

When I ran the past president, who we're in a good place today was very influential in overturning that election.

(soft instrumental music) I will say my election was valid (chuckles) in terms of the constitution.

I would just say that I didn't have a strong support system as I would've liked to.

When I ran the first time after that I took some time off of the NAACP, went back to school.

It was a really good point for m how to be prepared and how to show up and what is needed and it was a good wake up call.

(soft instrumental music) I was down there right after it guarding black businesses, the current president of the Minneapolis chapter, Lesl and I were really close so I would go back and forth to then help patrol black businesse until when the national guard ca and it kind of settled down after, a little bit after that, I saw more people wanting to do or realizing maybe their privile I mean there was a big tick in membership... uptick of membership.

We had gotten more people willing to volunteer.

We had more people willing to spend dollars on NAACP initiatives.

I could say that what happened in Minneapolis was a catalyst for our allies but for anybody who has been in this fight for advocacy, for civil rights, this is nothing new.

It was nothing that came as a sh I was probably if nothing more desensitized to it, I mean, we lost a lot of people and it negatively impacted people of color.

COVID was a huge catalyst for the health inequities.

I think what's been happening in the last couple of years is definitely been able to shine a light on everything that the NAACP is working on, especially within our Twin Ports not only as my role as president and the NAACP but as my role as owner of a homeless shelter like I'm seeing this completely different side of Duluth and what it looked like to me on the inside was these issues are being ignor And so being able to be a part of an organization that highlights these inequities and pushes past the barriers and disrupts the status quo was.

I don't even have words for it.

These are real changes that can happen here.

(soft instrumental music) When I was elected, I was elected with a brand new board.

So that was in 2020 and I officially took office in My executive committee and myself have only been around for about a year and a half.

I was able to gather a very strong group of individuals who are passionate and relentles about getting this work done.

The 80% of what we work on is strategic upstream initiatives to end systemic racism and systemic inequalities.

The other 20% is the work that we do with the community.

We do the Juneteenth, we do the MLK programming like really community involvemen and sponsoring other organizatio (soft instrumental music) Another program that we do on to is our rapid response initiative and our rapid response just attacks overt acts of racism.

When they happened - One young swimmer made more than a splash at a local swim meet when she was nearly disqualified for wearing a suit that read black lives matter on it.

(soft instrumental music) - And I mean, that's what that w It was an overt act of racism and I really believe that Duluth just needed somebody, now today to call it out.

Who's calling it out in an unbia We gotta hold everybody accounta but if I see somebody being treated unfairly especially a student who's shouldn't have to be facin on any level at that age I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna show up fierce.

I heard swimmer Leidy was facing that very overt act of discrimin saying wearing a swimsuit that says my life matters and wasn't allowed to swim because of that.

I wasn't gonna allow that to hap So being able to call these alli for them to come up and show up in the moment, having the vice president of the show up in that moment and suppo having the executive director of the YMCA continually supporting Leidy and the NAACP like that's the kind of allyship So it was an event that I think we can be like this is a learning experience and like, how can we make Duluth How can we make Superior better?

How can we make our community and the Twin Ports better?

But also being able to attack it right when it happens.

A lot of news station picked it A lot of black swimmers organization picked it up.

LeBron James put it on his Insta The Lieutenant Governor Peggy put it on her Instagram story.

Like it was amazing to get recog for the work that we're doing but I was just excited for Leidy Like she's such a boss in her ow being able to see her get all the support coming in is something that I wish I had when I was growing up.

I never want another child to feel like this and if I can be that buffer, if I can be that shield I will gladly take that and wear that armor for these kids.

During COVID I fought for my wor I own a homeless shelter here in I fought for my workers because they weren't considered critical workers during the height of the epidemi So I fought with the county to give my staff and workers a f and to be considered critical wo which they declined on multiple on multiple occasions and guess what I did, it was rea I cut my salary in half and I gave that to my people because they're more important than me sitting behind a desk.

There's no such thing as this ta It takes time when we let them t In its totality, systemic change looks like nobody experiencing barriers.

Everybody getting an actual fair chance at life and experiencing things that people who are privileged get to experience regardless of their education, of their skin color, of what they identify as in thei in the long range of things, a systemic change brings down those barriers that we put in as a society.

And the amazing thing about systemic change also is that we make it in place that it's sustainable and that it doesn't matter if Classie is the president of the NAACP or Dan Smith or Jane Doe is the president of change is still happening and as change is still eliminating barriers regardless of who's in power because we're giving these peopl who are closest to the pain all and really giving everybody that chance of success.

I try to be more optimistic on where we can go but I've just been living here f and I've seen people who look like me struggle and I've seen people who look like me get up and leave because we don't have a sense of community here that supports us and supports people who look lik People ask me how many hours I p and I'm like it's really for me, it's like an eight to eight (chuckles) or an eight to nine.

I do love it because I'm seeing the change.

The one thing that I do love abo is that we're small enough to really make a big impact that could change the rest of th We've seen it happen before and we could do it again.

We just need more of our ally su and we need our allies not telling us what to do and how to do it.

We need them to jump on board with what we're doing.

Funding for Intersections is bro and Cultural Heritage Fund, and