Our Way or the Highway: Inside the Minnehaha Free State

A great piece of journalism. Mary Losure of MPR tells the story of the Earth First activists and Native Americans who formed a coalition to try to stop the rerouting of Highway 55 in South Minneapolis from destroying a residential area, a stand of old oak trees, and a spring that the Mendota Dakota believed to be sacred. In the course of the story, she gives the background and perspectives of officials from the MN Dept of Transportation, the Earth Firsters, and the members of the Mendota Dakota community as she documents each phase of the protest. The style is very close to radio journalism, and the book includes black and white photos from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, so you can picture it all as it happens.

I had just moved to the Twin Cities when this protest was happening, and I remember hearing about it on the radio, but not knowing what it was all about. I read this book a couple of years later, and it helped me to get to know my new city a bit better. Reading this book a second time, almost exactly 20 years after the events it depicts, I'm struck by how much has remained the same here. Adversarial relationships between police and activists, “regular folk” who may not like what the state or industry is doing but think resistance is futile, a small group of dedicated and resourceful activists (who may be scruffy and drive elaborately painted buses) holding out as long as possible until they are removed by force.