Students
Last month, on a blustery mid-April Monday, thousands of students across the state of Minnesota stood up, packed their bags, and walked out of school. Some left quietly, and some chanted. Some gathered for rallies on school grounds, congregating around flagpoles or in stadiums. Others came together at U.S. Bank Stadium for a rally, where youth activists and NAACP leaders gave speeches and led chants as snow flurries dusted the crowd. All shared a common goal: to protest racial injustice. To honor Daunte Wright, who was killed by police in Brooklyn Center six days earlier, and George Floyd, whose murderer was convicted just 24 hours after Monday’s school bell rang. To mourn thousands of people killed by police. With at least 118 schools in attendance, it was one of the largest school walkouts in Minnesota state history—and it was all organized by a tight-knit, determined group of students called the MN Teen Activists.
You may have seen the MN Teen Activists pop up on Instagram—at nearly 20,000 followers, they’re a staple of the Twin Cities activist social feed. But behind the daily posts, who are they? They’re students who work together across a handful of the metro’s schools. They’re lacrosse players, debate team members, volunteer tutors, and young leaders with the NAACP. They each play a part in a burgeoning, youth-led movement for racial justice. And they walked out of school last month for a reason.
“We were able to make a statement as youth to the best of our ability—not another hashtag, not another post, not another social media blast, but an actual action, affirming our beliefs and affirming the message that Black Lives Matter and this injustice needs to come to an end,” says Jerome Treadwell, 17, an organizer with the MN Teen Activists and a junior at Highland Park High School.
MN Teen Activists was founded just days before George Floyd’s murder, by Fridley High School student Aaliyah Murray. At first, the group’s six student leaders focused on racism in schools, but as the summer’s uprisings catapulted police brutality in Minneapolis into the national spotlight, they began to take on criminal justice issues, police brutality, and racism in the lives of everyday people, not just students. Last summer, they raised $80,000 for Lake Street businesses damaged in the uprising. On their Instagram account, they provide followers with resources and information—everything from how to protest safely, to mutual aid fundraiser links, to support for students of color dealing with racism.
Last month’s walkout was their latest action. They did it to demand racial justice—but also, to mourn and to heal, and to show school administrators how devastating patterns of police violence are for students of color.
“The walkout was a way for students around the entire state not to only have a safe space for healing, but also to have a voice of their own, and show that to administrators [who] may have dealt with a lot of racist encounters in the past,” says Hawa Cabdullahi, 16, a co-founder of MN Teen Activists and a sophomore at Champlin Park High School. “Students are not just robots, we have feelings and emotions too. And sometimes, the best way to display our compassion and have a safe space for all students is to leave the school entirely.”
MN Teen Activists coordinated with student leaders as far away as Bemidji, Duluth, Rochester and Red Wing, passing out email templates to send to school principals and distributing megaphones. There was a half-and-half split between urban and suburban schools, says Treadwell. They’ve heard of a few students being punished for walking out of class, but for the most part, teachers and administrators have been supportive, even if only quietly.
“Even though our principal couldn't outwardly support us—because if you support one student-led assembly, then you have to support like, for example, a KKK rally if that were ever to happen—there's a lot of very positive reinforcements from our teachers from administrators,” says Cabdullahi.
And after months of hard work, MN Teen Activists are starting to see change. They say many schools that participated in the walkout are implementing programming, addressing long standing issues of racism. One created a physical healing space for students who’ve been emotionally affected by the year’s unrest. Other changes are harder to put words to.
“Hope for the future for Black and Brown students is really what makes me happy. Seeing people be a part of the solution, that's been a problem for the past 400 years, right,” says Treadwell. “Seeing people feel freedom, like there's hope for their lives—for their brothers and sisters, and their uncles and their aunts and their mothers. That they may be able to see tomorrow, that they may not have a horror story to tell their children but a story of victoriousness.”
The MN Teen Activists stay busy, too—Treadwell leads the youth chapter of the St. Paul NAACP, and Cabdullahi fills her days up with extracurriculars, playing sports, volunteering, and competing on the debate team. She says her activist work has sharpened her focus, and taught her to use her talents with purpose.
“I think it's definitely made me feel a lot more happy within myself,” says Cabdullahi. “I've always been into politics and keeping up to date with current news. I'm in debate—you debate about current events, all the racism, everything—every single day, for like three whole months. It only felt natural that I use information I've learned over the years to become a better person, and to allow students just like me: students of color, female students, any type of student, any youth, to have their own passion, to have their own purpose.”
So what’s next? Treadwell says the MN Teen Activists are applying for nonprofit status—they plan to deepen collaborations with the NAACP, and work with legislators to gain a seat at the table on police reform. They’re focused on addressing unnecessary use of force, and other issues that affect their communities. And while their on-the-ground actions are local, MN Teen Activists’ platform engages an international audience: they’re raising awareness about police brutality in Nigeria, Columbia, and other affected countries. In that work—as youth across the globe lead protests against inequality, climate change, poverty, femicide, authoritarianism, and state violence—they’re not alone.
“Many people mistake that youth are the future,” says Treadwell. “I would submit that they are the now.”
