GreeningFrogtownNovDec17

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
Inside…
Get Insured
Navigators will help
you get health care
— P. 4
New Director
for Vic Theater
Julie Adams-Gerth
steps up — P. 3
VOTING: WEALTHY GOT IT NAILED. WHAT ABOUT YOU? PAGE 2
Blood on the Flowers
The many unintended targets ofgun violence
“He wasn’t the intended target.”
A St. Paul cop offered this consolation when I asked him to help
make sense of the shooting death of Dawahn Littles in October.
Dawahn wasn’t the intended target. He simply had the misfortune
to be between one angry person shooting a gun at another angry
person late on a Saturday night. Neither had the
sense to listen to Dawahn’s pleas for both of
them to stop arguing, go home, and sleep it off.
Dawahn wasn’t the intended target, but his four
kids are fatherless, and his modest thrift store,
so optimistically named “Urban Treasures,” is
now shuttered and dark. He died in the alley
behind his store, near a bed of flowers and a
colorful mural. He died with his brother holding
his hand and telling him to hang on, as the
ambulances screamed toward them.
I knew Dawahn as a neighbor, who lived and
worked next door to a community greenspace I maintained all
summer with other Frogtown Green volunteers. His big gray
pitbull, chained to the back of the store building, would bark at us
as we gardened. Dawahn and the pit were a regular and
comforting presence on busy Dale Street. Every morning he’d set
a motley collection of shoes and sweatshirts and other
secondhand items out on the sidewalk, and sweep up the night’s
accumulated litter. He’d stand by the table and chat with
customers at the beauty shop next door and other people who
drove up.
I don’t know how much he sold out of his store. It’s safe to
say he wasn’t banking a fortune. But he made great
barbecued chicken, which he and his pals ate under the
garden’s gazebo. He offered to cook up a bunch of hot dogs
for a community party we held. In return, we brought him a
bouquet.
Dawahn wasn’t the intended target. That’s
the problem with guns and angry people.
There are always unintended targets.
Dawahn is dead. His wife is a widow. His
kids are fatherless. The entire
community’s sense of safety is
undermined.
Someone has been arrested for Dawahn’s
murder. There will be a trial, maybe a
prison sentence. Another family thrown
into further disarray. Unintended targets.
You can’t arrest your way out of this
problem. You can’t solve it overnight. The trouble is laced
throughout our culture. We don’t seem to believe much in
compromise anymore. We think it’s more important to stand
your ground and bully those who don’t agree with you. We
need a reset. People need tools to manage their emotions.
They need training in how to avoid and resolve conflict.
That should start with parenting classes and continue
throughout schooling. It should start in our community. It
should start now.
— Patricia Ohmans
Greens Champ
to Be Crowned
in Cook-off
December date set
for title event
— P. 3
Off Leash Park
for Bowser?
Officials look to
Hamline-Midway
for new dog park
— P. 3
Exit Interview
for Organizer
Sam Buffington
moves on after 10
years on the job
— P. 8

BIG IDEAS
How About Voting?
People with more money seem to find the time
Money and Voting
One thing about people with money: they
vote.
Consider, for instance, the last St. Paul
mayoral election, in 201 3. In Ward Three
— the Highland Park/Mac-Groveland
portion of the city, where the annual
median household income is greater than
$70,000— more than 7,500 people cast a
ballot.
Or look at Ward Four — the St. Anthony
Park/Como neighborhood, where the
median income varies between about
$56,000 and $67,000 depending on the
part of the ward. In the 201 3 mayoral
race, 5,770 people got out to vote.
In comparison, Ward One — where we
live, along with people in Hamline-
Midway and Summit-U — saw about
4,600 people show up to vote. As you
already know, there’s less money
sloshing around Frogtown than in
Highland Park. The median income for
our portion of Ward One is about
$35,000.
The population in all the city’s seven
wards are roughly the same. But the
combined vote totals in Wards One, Five,
Six and Seven are less than the total in
Wards Two and
Four.
Why is this so?
Is it because
people with
money know
voting is
meaningless,
nothing will
ever change,
politicians are
all the same but
nonetheless
they can’t resist
Above: Likely voter. What about you?
an absurd
exercise?
something about it.
Or is it because they understand —
despite all the happy chatter about how
every resident is important, and that
every public servant is committed to
ending inequities — that the voice of
people who vote is always a little louder?
They aren’t stupid; they’re tending to
their interests. Which, because they earn
twice as much as you do, might be
different than your interests. A $1 5
minimum wage, jobs programs and
police reform might seem more important
to you than to
them.
Get Registered
It’s easy to talk
about the
structural
causes of
inequity. Voting
for people who
represent your
interests — and
understand that
you can help
vote them in or
out of office —
is a way to do
You’ve got to be registered to vote. If
you’re not, there are easy ways to get the
job done.
Register online by going to
www.sos.state.mn.us/elections-voting/
You’ll need an email address, plus either
a Minnesota drivers license, Minnesota
ID, or the last four digits of your Social
Security number.
You can also register at your polling
place. Find out where you vote at
pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/ On election
day, bring along a Minnesota driver’s
license, learner’s permit, a state ID,
passport, military, college or high school
ID, or a bill dated within the last 30 days
for services such as phone, TV, internet,
rent or mortgage, lease, bank or credit
card statement. Alternately, a voter
registered in your precinct can vouch
for you at your polling place.
Hear Candidates at Local Forum
Attend a mayoral candidate forum from
6-8 pm, Sat., Nov. 4, at St. Stephanus
Church, 739 Lafond Ave. The forum will
be hosted by WFNU radio personality
Karen Larson, who has confirmed that
eight of the ten candidates will attend,
including Melvin Carter, Trahern Crews,
Elizabeth Dickinson, Tom Goldstein,
Tim Holden, Dai Thao and Barnabas
Joshua Yshua.
PAGE 2 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER JULY / AUGUST 2017
6

At the Victoria Theater, A New Director
FROGTOWN NEWS
Now on board at the Victoria Theater:
just-hired director Julie Adams-Gerth.
“I’m really excited,” says Victoria
Theater Arts Initiative director Sarah
Nichols of the new hire. “She brings a ton
of energy, passion and experience to the
work.”
The project to rehab the former cabaret
and lighting store at 81 3 University got a
boost in Mayor Chris Coleman’s still-tobe-approved
budget, when he directed
$462,000 toward the purchase and repair
of the historic structure. But the
organization still has over $2 million to
raise to pull off the rehab.
Adams-Gerth is the right person for the
job, says Nichols. Her experience
includes serving as executive director of a
similar Sacramento, California project,
the Sierra 2 Center. There a former school
building was saved from demolition and
transformed into a center for cultural and
educational activities that also includes a
senior center.
The vision for the Victoria Theater,
developed during a series of community
meetings inside the gutted building,
includes space for theater, music, art
exhibits and instruction.
“There’s a lot of work ahead,” says
Adams-Gerth. “But I can see the passion,
and how excited people are about this
project.”
Her first days on the job will be filled
with housekeeping details, she reckons —
reviewing the by-laws, setting up
bookkeeping accounts, getting a phone,
and then reaching out to community
members. By Nichols' estimate, the
Victoria Theater could be open for
business in about two years.
New Victoria Theater Arts Initiative executive director Julie Adams-Gerth.
Are You the Next Greens Champ?
Maybe you missed last year’s Greens
Cook Off and are still weeping bitter tears
of regret. Here’s a chance to make up for
your oversight. Attend the Second Annual
Greens Cook Off, 4:30-7:30 pm,
Saturday, December 2, at Pilgrim Baptist
Church, 732 Central Ave.
Hosted by the Urban Farm and Garden
Alliance, the cook-off pits local kitchen
magicians against each other in a contest
to see who will take the title of St. Paul’s
Greens Queen. Organizer Megan Phinney
allows for the possibility that there could
be a Greens King this year. But last time
around, women ruled, putting out dishes
that showed the many variations on the
greens theme.
Phinney at megphinney1 @gmail.com. In
addition to greens, the event will feature
a meal, entertainment, kid activities and
speechifying. It’s the social event of the
season, and it’s free.
Volunteers Terri Gripp (left) and Meaza Ogbazghi presided over a pile of bread.
Food Shelf Gets a Permanent Home
Frogtown’s replacement for the closed
Sharing Korner food shelf got a new
home in October, when the operation
moved from the St. Stephanus Church
parking lot to a home in the gym at City
School, located on the corner of Lafond
and Western.
For users, the Frogtown food program is
less complicated than many food shelf
operations. There are no forms to fill out,
and no need to prove that you live within
a certain area. If you show up between 3
and 5 pm on Friday afternoons, there is a
mountain of food to choose from. It’s
first-come, first-served, so it can pay off
to show up earlier rather than later.
On a Friday in late October a line
stretched out the door before the 3 pm
opening. Inside, the gym was filled with
food salvaged from area grocery stores by
the Second Harvest organization. The
offerings vary from week to week. On
this afternoon the fare included brats,
steaks, beef roast, hamburger, country
ribs, stuffed pork chops, proscuitto rolls
and a massive filet of wild salmon that
retailed for $50. There was a pile of
bread, cakes, pies, frozen pizza, spaghetti
and meatball kits, plus salad ingredients,
fruit, mushrooms and a wide selection of
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
vegetables. By the end of the giveway all
that remained was a few bell peppers,
according to operation manager Delinia
Parris.
The new pantry operation has been fueled
by volunteers, mostly organized by Lynn
Thompson of St. Stephanus Church. If
you want to offer help, call Parris at 61 2-
703-9470.
In case anyone doubted, the crowd lined
up for food throughout the summer
proved the need for this Frogtown service.
Up to 250 households showed up for the
give-away during the summer months.
The relocation to City School is part of a
larger plan to remake the school building
into a community center that would
eventually feature the food shelf, medical
services, legal assistance and other
services in partnership with community
organizations. The City School plan,
according to executive director Nancy
Dana, is to move most classroom
education to the school’s other location at
260 Edmund Ave. But before that can
happen, the school needs to find the
money for a retrofit. It’s not a nickel and
dime project, says Dana, who asks, “Do
you know where we can find $8 million?”
In last year’s set up, guests sampled from
a table of greens and voted for their
favorites. A panel of local celebrities also
weighed in to choose a winner. The 201 6
judges annointed Keya Tabor as Greens
Queen. This year? It could be you.
If you think you can stand up to the heat
in this competitive kitchen and want to
become a contestant, contact Megan
Sure, he'd love an off-leash run at
Newell Park. How about the neighbors?
Mr. Greens, James Kuralle, dressed for
success at last year's event.
Off‐Leash Park for
Hamline‐Midway?
Interested in an off-leash dog park that
would be reasonably close to Frogtown?
Attend a meeting sponsored by the
Hamline Midway Coalition and St. Paul
Parks and Rec to talk about creating an
off-leash dog park within or near Newell
Park, located at Fairview and Pierce
Butler Route.
The meeting is set for 5:30 to 7:00 pm,
Thur., Nov. 9 in the Newell Park building.
City staff will describe the possibilities,
and listen to your feedback.
Can't make the meeting? Send your
comments to info@hamlinemidway.org.
Your thoughts will be forwarded to Parks
& Recreation staff and the office of Russ
Stark, city councilperson for the Hamline-
Midway area.
PAGE 3

FROGTOWN NEWS
Time to Sign Up for Health Insurance
FOR UNIVERSITY, HOUSING FOR HOMELESS NATIVE YOUTH: The latest addition
to University Ave. is slated to be supportive housing for Native young adults, ages
1 8 to 24. Project for Pride in Living will manage the $11 .3 million, four-story
building at 771 -785 University Ave. that will include 42 studio units, with 21 of
those set aside for the long-term homeless, and seven for people with disabilities.
Groundbreaking is set for spring/summer of 201 8. The building will include
classrooms, a tech center, fitness room, workshops, and community space for
cultural ceremonies, all designed to meet the needs of Native Americans.
Programming will be run by the Ain Dah Yung Center of St. Paul The group offers
a variety of street outreach, emergency shelter, and family support service
programs.
This project is one of several newly funded by the Minnesota Housing Finance
Agency in Frogtown. Among other recipients:
• $1 86,000 to NeighborWorks Home Partners to fund a rehab of 1 2 owneroccupied
homes.
• $1 00,000 for down-payment housing assistance to NeighborWorks
Home Partners for ten low- to mid-income households in
Frogtown/Rondo and the North End.
If you don’t have health insurance
through your job, and aren’t on Medicare
or MinnesotaCare, it’s time to apply for
insurance through MNsure, the state-run
exchange.
The enrollment period starts Nov. 1 and
runs through Jan. 1 5 — though if you
want to be covered as of Jan. 1 , you’ve
got to sign up by Dec. 20.
The downside of not bothering with
health insurance? Last year you got hit
with tax-time penalty of $695 per adult in
your household, and $347.50 per child,
up to a maximum or $2.085 (2.5 percent
of your household adjusted gross income,
whichever was higher). Penalties will
likely increase in 201 8. Not to mention
that you will be looking at a pile of
medical bills if you or yours get seriously
ill during the year.
The payoff for signing up through
MNsure is that for people who live in the
income bracket that many Frogtowners
occupy, government subsidies pay for a
significant portion of your insurance. You
can qualify for tax credits if you earn up
to $48,240 for a single person, or $98,400
for a family of four. About 65 percent of
Ramsey County residents who bought
insurance through MNsure last year got
help paying their insurance bills. On
average, the subsidy came to $444 per
household per month.
There are two ways to get your MNsure
application in. You can go to the website,
MNsure.org, and take a crack at applying
on your own. In the years since the site's
disastrous 201 3 unveiling, the website has
become easier to navigate. Nonetheless,
the application process and the choice of
insurance packages can still be hugely
confusing, both to native English
speakers and to people who come at
English as a second language. If you’d
rather have help, you can get it via
specially-trained navigators at nearby
community organizations.
A complete list of navigators is available
on the MNsure website. To get you
started, here’s a list of nearby locations
where you can get help — both in English
and in languages commonly spoken by
Frogtowners. Call for an appointment,
and make sure to ask what documents
you should bring to your meeting.
Portico Healthnet, 1 600 University Ave.,
651 -489-2273. Navigators in English,
Somali, Spanish and Hmong.
Open Cities, 409 Dunlap St., 651 -290-
9231 . Navigators in English, and the
African languages Twi, Swahili, Kirundi,
PAGE 4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017

FROGTOWN NEWS
Rwandees, Krio and Mende.
Sub-Sharan African Youth and Family
Services of Minnesota, 1 885 University
AVe., 651 -644-3983. Navigators in
English, Oromo and Amharic.
Health Access MN, 231 4 University
Ave., 651 -645-021 5, Navigators in
English, Spanish, Amharic and Hmong.
Springboard for the Arts, 308 Prince
Street, Suite 270, 651 -292-4381 . Advice
tailored to the financial lives of artists.
Get started at
springboardforthearts.org/healthwellness/overview/.
Shots Fired. What
Do You Do Next?
It starts with bang, bang, bang. Next
you’re wondering, Gunshots or
fireworks? Wait two minutes, check the
Frogtown Neighbors page on Facebook,
and what is inevitably a long thread
begins to play out. Anybody else hear
that? Where was it? I heard it, too. Cops
are outside my door.
So what do you do when you hear what
seem to be gunshots? Call the cops to
report it, or shrug and go back to bed?
The correct response, according to St.
Paul Police crime prevention
coordinator Patty Lammers, is call 911
and let the cops know. But she isn’t
promising that the world will change.
Typically what happens next, she says,
is that a cop will be sent out to followup.
Sometimes they may find the
leftover debris from fireworks. If so,
case closed. Sometimes there’s not
even that much, and the cop reports
that whatever happened, it’s gone on
arrival. Occasionally the officer might
find shell casings in the street, in
which case they’ll be bagged and sent
out to the Bureau of Criminal
Apprehension for fingerprints. With a
six-month backup at the crime lab, it’s
not an instant crime-busting scenario.
But there’s always the chance that
someone is shot nearby and will be
found by cops sent out to investigate.
That’s one big reason why your call
could be important.
Lammers says reports of shots fired are
up up again this year, this following a
60 percent increase between 201 4,
when 679 weapon discharge calls were
made, and 201 6, with 1 ,092 reports of
gunfire. Gunfire is almost never heard
in vast stretches of St. Paul —
Highland, Mac-Groveland, St.
Anthony Park and Battle Creek. But
COUCH KING: West Minne Rec Center director Bilal Muhammad is in the lap of
luxury on a new sofa — part of a suite of leather furniture that includes easy
chairs, rugs and a vast flat screen tv in the center's community room. It's part of
an effort to make the center more appealing as a gathering spot for a wider
variety of residents.
according to police crime maps the
stretch of Frogtown from Dale St. to
Lexington is all toward the top of the
charts.
“We’ve taken 400 guns off the streets
this summer alone,” Lammers reports.
But when it comes to the cause of
increased reporting of gun shots, she
says there’s no easy answer. Some of
it, she speculates, is guns getting stolen.
Some is easy access to guns in homes.
Some of it is ever-younger people with
limited grasp of consequences picking up
guns.
Even if cops find a victim, it’s not easy to
get to the bottom of the problem, says
Lammers. “A lot of times victims won’t
cooperate, even when they’ve been shot.”
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
PAGE 5

FROGTOWN NEWS
For Local Organizer, the Exit Interview
After ten years at the neighborhood organization, Sam Buffington moves on
After working ten years as an organizer
for the Frogtown Neighborhood
Association, Sam Buffington is moving on
to a new job at Springboard for the Arts.
In his last days on the job, he reflected on
what went right, what went wrong, and
the complexity ofgetting in the middle
when neighbors have a beef. Below is a
condensed version ofthis conversation.
Looking back, what do you think you got
right? Where did you learn you were
wrong?
That depends on who you’re talking to.
Early on we did a lot of work on problem
properties. That gets really hard when
those lines get blurry. Is this really a
problem or is it just a dispute between
neighbors? Often it’s somewhere in the
middle and it’s really confusing.
Whatever we did, there was somebody
who felt personally wronged. They felt
like we were actively hurting them.
Give me an example.
The neighbor who complains about the
woman who lives down the street —
saying her grandkids are thugs, gangsters,
they’re causing all this trouble. Then you
Sam Buffington at a surprise farewell party at Johnny's Bar in October.
go talk to her and she says, ‘They were
just sitting on the porch smoking a
cigarette and this guy came over and
started yelling and called them racial slurs
and then he called the cops.’
I had a couple that came to me and said,
‘Hey, one of our neighbors left me this
really threatening note.’ So they showed
me the note. And it wasn’t like, ‘I’m
going to kill you,’ but it had an ominous
undertone. There had been other
complaints from neighbors about them as
well. They wanted to get a restraining
order. I helped them figure out how to do
that and wrote them a letter to support
their case. But the guy who sent the note
saw my letter in the court packet, so he
came in to yell at me. The problem never
really did get resolved. They’re probably
still fighting.
If you take a side in these things, if you
decide one party is the problem neighbor,
they feel like you and your organization
are actively trying to hurt them. And you
are. You’re trying to move people out.
Do you see a good way around that?
That’s been a real struggle. We’ve moved
toward trying to deal with problems
before there’s an active conflict. For
instance, with gun violence, we’re talking
about better early interventions. What are
better ways to handle those situations?
We’ve been working with a group of local
mothers, trying to figure out what we can
do to start fixing the root of the problem.
The obvious solutions to neighbors and to
funders are police solutions. The problem
is, you get the police involved, they arrest
somebody, that fixes it right then, but
then he gets out and it’s not like you’ve
solved the problem. Those are temporary
fixes that can often bring really negative
consequences on people. But at the same
time you’ve got to be sympathetic to
people when crazy things are happening
on their block.
PAGE 8
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017

FROGTOWN NEWS
Finding ways to humanize this stuff
would help. It’s easy to think, there are
thugs, there are good people, there are
victims, there are good neighbors, there
are bad neighbors. But many things are
much blurrier. If you’re just thinking, this
guy is a thug, then your solution is
probably not going to get to the cause.
You’re missing out on the reality that a lot
of these kids are 1 5. If you think they’re
so hard, so evil, that there’s no messaging
that will get through to them, then you’re
missing some real opportunities.
It seems like the crux ofwhat you’re
talking about here, is the difficulty in
finding a balance when a balance will
almost certainly make nobody happy.
That’s really worn on me. You never feel
good about what’s happening. There are
all these legitimate, conflicting needs.
A ST. PAUL FELLOWSHIP, A FREE MEAL: Get a free meal
for your family at St. Paul Fellowship Church at Sherburne
and Victoria every Wednesday at 6 pm. Food is provided
by Loaves and Fishes. A recent meal included meatballs,
hotdish, a vegetarian rice dish, salad, cookies and
beverages. All you need to do is show up. Above: Edna
Waddle (left), Isabella Tucker and Ainsley Ginn.
Everybody’s right and everybody’s
wrong. Especially if you’re dealing with
individuals. If you’re this housing policy
organization, for instance, you think, I’ve
got this housing policy idea and it’s great
because you’re not really dealing with
people. You're looking at data and it says
this or that. It’s a really different
conversation than talking to somebody
who says I can’t find a place to live in
Frogtown. Nobody will take my
Section 8 voucher anymore. I got to move
out to Brooklyn Center, but my mom
lives here and my kids go to school here,
and my job is here, and everything I
know is down here, and I don’t have a
car. It’s all those things. Then the bigger
long-term housing policy doesn’t seem
that great.
The unique thing about being a
community organizer is that you’re
working and having a relationship with
people on all sides of
an issue. So you’re
trying to figure out a
way to balance things
that sometimes can’t
really be balanced.
That’s the confusion,
that’s the tension. The
vast majority of my
day is spent
maintaining
relationships with
people. I’m helping
somebody figure out
how to order diapers
on the internet, or how
to talk to their
neighbor in a way that
doesn’t lead to
fighting.
What’s your advice to
the next person in your
chair?
CHECKING IT OUT AT RONDO LIBRARY: Natasha Turner and O'Honesty Thomas
worked out the computers at the newly-renovated Rondo Community Outreach
Library, which reopened in October after a summer-long shut down. The
rearranged space includes adjacent young child and school-age homework areas,
more computers, a community meeting space, an more open layout with better
sight lines, and a glassed-off quiet area for anyone who wants the classic oldschool
library experience.
Two things. One: You’ve got to keep
getting out in the neighborhood. Too
much time gets wasted in big meetings
that aren’t really relevant.
Two: Very, very rarely is the specific
project that you’re doing in the moment
all that important. The more important
thing is building the sense of community
ownership, the sense that you can make
changes. You should be building the
sense of neighborhood pride and power.
The result of any one issue rarely changes
the bigger picture. It’s easy to get caught
up in thinking, ‘Oh, we lost this issue at
the city and a win would have made
everything better, and the loss is going to
be devastating to the neighborhood. But
you realize over time that what’s
important is the accumulation of things.
If people are feeling connected and
empowered and more informed, that’s
more important than any one issue.
is published six times per year by Health Advocates Inc.
843 Van Buren Ave., St. Paul,
and is distributed door-to-door from
Lexington to 35E, and University to Pierce Butler.
Publisher: Patricia Ohmans • Editor: Anthony Schmitz
651 .757.5970 • patricia.ohmans@gmail.com
651 .757.7479 • apbschmitz@gmail.com
Ad rates & more at GreeningFrogtown.com
Next issue, January/February • Ad deadline December 1 5.
Health Advocates also sponsors Frogtown Green,
an initiative that promotes green development to increase
the health and wealth ofFrogtown residents.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
PAGE 9

FROM PAGE ONE
Opera, from Frogtown
Dameun Strange's path to work that blends operatic tradition with African-American experience
As a child, Dameun Strange loved old
school, classical music. Not too
surprising, since he was exposed to it
regularly, in services at his family church
in Washington, DC. He particularly loved
the bold, dramatic arias in operas and
masses by George Friedrich Handel. He
dreamt of writing arias that moved
listeners the way that Handel’s music
moved him. “I wanted to be G.F.
Handel,” says Strange. “I wanted to write
music that big.”
Only gradually did young Dameun
recognize that the music that affected him
so deeply was —in his words—“not of
me and perhaps not for me.” Handel,
Beethoven, Mahler; all his favorites were
white, and European. “As I grew in my
appreciation for classical music and its
multitude of composers, I began to notice
a few troubling facts. There were not a lot
of Western classical composers who had
the skin color of a beautiful cello,”
Strange observes.
Undaunted, Strange mastered the viola
and the clarinet, urged on by a doting and
resourceful great-grandmother who
enrolled him in youth orchestras and
found ways to pay for music lessons.
Schooled in the classics as well as a wide
variety ofAfrican-American musical
genres, Strange moved to Minnesota to
A scene from Mother King. See a performance recording at DameunStrange.com.
attend Macalester College, and eventually
found a home in Frogtown.
Here, he has revived his old ambition to
create moving operatic music, with
content that reflects his African-American
heritage. With librettist Venessa Fuentes,
Strange recently created Mother King: A
Black Conceptual Opera, based on the life
of Martin Luther King’s mother, Alberta
Williams King. The opera premiered in
July in a well-received, limited run at
Public Functionary, a Minneapolis gallery
and performance space.
“Few people know about Alberta King’s
life or death,” Strange says. “I knew she
was the mother of MLK, but I did not
know about her assassination.” Strange’s
opera shows Alberta King’s life as she
experiences it in flashbacks, at the
moment of her death. She is visited by the
spirits of her children and others who
have preceded her in death.
“The opera is really about mothers,”
Strange explains. “Black mothers who
want to be optimistic, want the best for
their children, but they know the odds.”
Alberta survived the assassination of her
son, Martin Luther, as well as the drowning
death of an older son, before her murder
while playing the organ at her church.
Despite the sorrowful subject matter, the
work ends on a joyful note, highlighting
the rituals and celebrations that build
resilience in black families. “We wanted
to end there, with joy,” Strange says.
And despite the church setting, the music
is not gospel, Strange notes. “Mother
King is contemporary classical music, or
art music. It’s not jazz, although it is jazzinfluenced.
It’s a hybrid of styles. There’s
singing continuously, throughout—it’s
through-composed, not broken up into
separate songs.”
Strange is aware that he is breaking with
convention—or establishing new
expectations. As he explains in a blog
post, “I understand that people might
expect it to be gospel or soul music, since
I’m a black musician. But I’m a black
composer, so whatever I write, it’s black
music. I have explored many genres of
music and have a deep affection for jazz,
soul, blues, hip hop, electronic/dance
music. And in these genres, black and
PAGE 10 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017

ART AND VEGGIES: Here's a creative way to support the Frogtown-based Hmong
American Farmers Association (HAFA) through ArtCrop, a project by Oskar Ly,
HAFA's artist in residence. Ly interviewed Hmong farmers, drawing inspiration to
create art that will be featured in HAFA's Thanksgiving CSA share. Get your box
full of harvest vegetables and art by signing up at www.hmongfarmers.com/csa.
brown stories are a wonderful woven
blanket, beautifully worn…I want to
weave a similar blanket for classical
music. I want to wrap new classical music
in bright brilliant tapestry of brown and
black stories.”
With some funds raised from an online
campaign, Strange is looking for a new
venue to perform the next version of
“Mother King.” “It would be nice if it
was the Victoria Theater,” he says
wistfully. He has served on the board of
the theater, a project to create a venue for
live performance and artists in Frogtown.
It’s one of several boards he serves on,
while directing the Northeast
Neighborhood Arts Association.
Strange and his wife Corinna Serrano
chose Frogtown for the diversity of
income and color. “We also liked the
proximity to public transportation, the
awesome food, and the cool public art.
The neighborhood is a creative, artistic
community, a perfect place for us.”
Photo courtesy of HAFA.
Artists of Frogtown
Frogtown is home to (at least) these selfidentified
musicians, painters, dancers.
Are you a Frogtown resident and artist?
Add yourselfto the list on Frogtown
Green’s Facebook page.
Alexandra Betzler-visual arts
Martin Biondo-visual arts
Cory Bracy-music
Ian Buck-writer
John Colburn-writing
Courtnie De Grand-music
Joy Dolo-theater
Lara Hanson-visual arts
Nathan Hanson-music
Michael Higgins-music
Ali Horrman-photograpy
Fiona Maria-visual arts
Matt Jarvis-music
Paul Johnson-music
Seitu Jones-visual art
Jeff Kidder-music
Alexander Larson-Barker-performance
Vong Lee-music
Joanne Lopez-visual arts
Tomas Lopez-visual arts
Tou Saiko Lee-performance
Cody Nelson-writing
Delinia Parris-writing
Polygon-music
Atom Robinson-music
Fazayah Rose-writing, visual arts
Lucienne Schroepfer-textile arts
Anthony Schmitz-writing
Matthew Schneeman-visual arts
Davu Seru-music, writing
Aki Shibata-performance
Dameun Strange-music
Angelica Timbush-visual arts
Wendell Ward-visual arts
Yevrah Yk-spoken word, music
Amy Waller-music
FROGTOWN'S IN BUSINESS
ICE CREAM EXPLOSION, PLUS NEW
MURAL: A world-wide rolled ice cream
craze rolled into Frogtown with the
opening of Wonders Ice Cream at 298
University and Sota Hot and Cold at
394 University. Ketsana Houngnakhone
(left, above) is the owner at Wonders.
At Sota (right), owner Pheng Vang
explained that he first learned about
the Asian street food via social media,
then made a trip to Thailand to learn
more. After buying equipment from
China, he experimented with recipes
for the delicacy, in which a dairy liquid
is poured on a freezing platter. Fruit or
other additions are chopped in. Then
the mix is scraped into rolls from the
platter and arranged in a bowl.
At lower right, St. Paul Hot Yoga and
Health owner Sarah Shimion strikes a
pose before the new mural on her
building at Dale and Charles. Shimion
hopes the mural's frame-like, sidewalk
level arches will inspire selfie-taking
yogis (and others).
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017
PAGE 11

PAGE 12 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017