A Brief History of the Occupation of Highway 55
May, 1998 - A coalition of members of Park and River Alliance, STOP THE REROUTE and South Minneapolis residents meet members of Earth First! at a rally outside Minneapolis City Hall. After some discussion, Earth First! establishes a small camp in Carol Kratz’s front yard. After discussions with resident archeologist David Fudally and learning that the endangered area contains a Dakota burial ground and sacred sites, American Indian Movement is contacted and asked to advise. When the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Government learns that their ancestral home, which they call Taku Wakan Tipi, is being threatened, they dispatch Cultural Chair James Anderson to assist. On August 10, 1998 a full-scale occupation is established in the path of the highway, on the same day that demolition is scheduled to begin on the seven remaining homes in the path of the reroute. The new coalition occupies the disputed area while lawyers and consultants are called in on both sides to settle the dispute. During this time spokespeople for the Mendota Mdewakantons try to meet with city and state officials and are snubbed by nearly everyone, including then-governor Arne Carlson and Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sayles Belton. The Minnesota Historical Society initially acknowledges that the proposed reroute will not only pave over some residents' homes, but will in fact remove the four historically significant trees and pose a great threat to Coldwater Spring, a site sacred to the Mendota Mdewakanton and significant as the first European settlement in Minnesota. After receiving a $6 million grant from the State DOT, the Historical Society recants its statements and refuses to further acknowledge the area's place in history.
On
October 14th, 1998 the Mendota Mdewakanton and Earth First! rally on the steps of the State Capitol building in Saint Paul. While they are away from camp hundreds of police officers move in with utility crews and disconnect water and gas lines that run to the disputed homes. Nine people are arrested, and this begins the first wave of police brutality complaints.
The occupation continues through Winter. On Thanksgiving Day members of the Minneapolis Park Board come to the occupation to warn of meetings “behind closed doors” to find a way to defeat the occupation permanently, although they will not disclose any details. In mid-December, an unidentified man enters the camp and warns that the company he works for has been contracted to tear down the seven homes on the coming weekend. While some skeptics doubt his words, preparations are made to defend against another police incursion. Lockdown sites are put in all of the homes and the occupants prepare for the coming confrontation. On the morning of
December 20, 1998 at about 4:00 am the camp finds itself surrounded by nearly 800 Law Enforcement officers. The homes are first flooded with tear gas, then police enter and apply pepper gel to the eyes and mouths of people in lockdown sites. In all 38 protesters are brutalized and arrested. Outgoing governor Arne Carlson later appears on local television stations to defend the attack as having been “necessary to send a message to these people” who, he said, “are not protesters, basically they’re anarchists.”
The protesters are detained in Jail for several days, and some with serious medical conditions and injuries from their arrests are denied medical attention, and are granted conditional release provided they do not return to the area of their former occupation. With little left to defend in the immediate area, the protesters return and establish a new camp a few hundred yards away. The new camp is established between the encroaching reroute and a circle of four bur oaks which the Dakota used as ceremonial death scaffolds and for ceremonies prior to 1863. While the new camp’s location at the heart of Minnehaha Park buys occupants more time to stop the reroute, it also removes the issue from the eyes of the general public and the media. Aside from the usual harassment from local police, the rest of the Winter and Spring are fairly uneventful, and protesters take the time to rest, recover, and challenge the reroute and the State’s actions against them legally.
During the Spring of 1999, MnDOT (Minnesota Department of Transportation) continues making plans to push the highway project ahead. MnDOT meets with the Minneapolis Park Board to discuss the next phase of the project - a detour of the current Highway 55 that will allow construction of an underground tunnel - and the Park Board gives their blessing after MnDOT assures them that no more than two or three trees will be lost in the process. On the morning of July 26, 1999, under an escort of several hundred city and state police, state crews move in and begin work. Over thirty trees and several blocks of park land are destroyed in one day. The work continues for about two weeks, during which time hundreds of trees are destroyed and over 100 arrests are made, most of them involving serious injuries to protesters. By the end of the confrontation, most of the northern 1/3 of Minnehaha Park has been deforested.
On September 27, 1999 crews prepare to take the existing highway down to one lane and continue with their work. Activists lock down in the street and delay the project by another day. Six activists climb a centuries-old cottonwood in an attempt to prevent its destruction. Two are pulled from the tree the same day, the other four remain, and are removed one at a time over the next ten days. Police surround the tree and shine the treesitters with flood lights 24 hours per day. Those who try to get supplies to the treesitters are arrested, the idea being to starve them out of the tree. After ten days and a final attempt to run supplies across to the last treesitter on a line high above the road, the last protester is pulled from the tree and it is removed. CODEFOR is declared in Minnehaha Park and the surrounding area, and to date is still in effect.
Recently high ranking officials from Minneapolis 3rd Precinct and Minnesota Highway Patrol entered the Occupation and said that they would be raiding again soon. They said that this time they intend to "put an end to this once and for all", but promised to give fair warning before they stormed the camp.
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