Live podcast event to draw line between Minneapolis of almost 100 years ago, events of 2020

Journalists and historians will connect the Black experience in the Minneapolis of 100 years ago with the murder of George Floyd five years ago, at an upcoming live podcast event.

The conversation will draw a line between the Robinsons, a Black family living in Minneapolis a century ago who are the subjects of the Minnesota Star Tribune’s podcast “Ghost of a Chance,” and the murder of Floyd in May 2020.

The narrative podcast centers on the lives of Harry and Clementine Robinson, who owned a house in a southwest Minneapolis neighborhood that is now one of the city’s whitest. Led by reporter Eric Roper, “Ghost of a Chance” traces the Robinsons’ lives and how their home fell out of their hands. Roper discovered the untold history when he and his husband moved into the Robinsons’ old home.

Genealogy records, public documents and newspaper clippings told a story of one family that revealed a larger history of Black Minnesotans and the racist barriers they faced.

The May 29 event will feel like a live taping of a podcast rather than a presentation, with opportunities for questions, said show producer and writer Melissa Townsend.

For podcast listeners, the event “From the Robinsons to Floyd: The Long History That Got Us Here” will be an opportunity to meet the experts behind it, Townsend said. For those less familiar, it’s an opportunity to learn from the journalists and historians who are working to excavate that history and accurately preserve the events of 2020.

Townsend and Roper will moderate a discussion that includes Yohuru Williams, the founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas; Kirsten Delegard, co-founder of Mapping Prejudice at the University of Minnesota; Greg Donofrio, U associate professor of historic preservation; and Greg McMoore, a life-long resident and historical expert of south Minneapolis.

There is an immediacy and a power to what journalists are able to do in tackling a story with added historical context, Williams said.

“But it’s even more powerful when those two forces combine and you get the contemporary through the lens of the historical, and the historical embedded in our effort to understand the present,” Williams said.

Looking at the lives of the Robinsons is a way for people to consider the ways 2020 connects to the larger history of Black Minnesotans — who faced an unjust criminal legal system and policies that were barriers to homeownership or entrepreneurship, Williams said.

Williams hopes attendees are left inspired by the work of the reporters and historians behind projects like “Ghost of a Chance,” Mapping Prejudice and Over-Policed and Under-Protected — all examples of how individuals can work toward equity through historical recovery and storytelling.

There is a lot to learn from the lives of the Robinsons, too, he said. Their story, while not triumphant, is one of resilience. The couple endured a great deal that should inspire listeners at a time when many people feel adrift, wondering how to survive and contextualize the current moment, Williams said.

“There’s a lot to take from Harry and Clementine, and their very human way of navigating both life issues and issues that were bigger than themselves,” Williams said. “And at the end, coming out with a degree of dignity and purpose that I think we can all only be inspired by.”

When: May 29, 2025

Where: Sabathani Community Center, 310 E. 38th St., Minneapolis

Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m.

Cost: $10; tickets available here.