minnehaha free state

Between August of 1998 and December of 1999, activists occupied neighborhood homes scheduled for demolition and parkland that was to be destroyed by highway construction. They lived in tepees, makeshift huts, tents and trees over two very cold Minnesota winters. They gathered petitions, shot "witness videos", attended hundreds of public hearings, educated the community, sat in trees they were trying to save, and participated in numerous acts of civil disobedience.

August 10 marks the 10-year anniversary of the Minnehaha Free State, the first urban anti-road occupation in U.S. history. On August 10, 1998, the occupation of the condemned corridor of the reroute of highway 55 through Minnehaha Park began, and would last for another 16 months. Although highway 55 desecrates the land in south Minneapolis today, the sacred Coldwater Spring continues to flow.

Below is a history of the Free State, from The Struggle is Our Inheritance: A History of Radical Minnesota.