On the ground with thousands of protestors at the Minneapolis general strike

It was too cold to take off my mittens and check Google Maps so I put my faith in the trickle of bundled-up people ahead of me. All of them were carrying signs and wearing whistles around their necks on top of layers and layers of winter clothing. At first there were dozens of us walking toward Government Plaza, across the street from Minneapolis City Hall, and within a block it was hundreds. By the time I arrived it was thousands. Some reports said five to ten thousand, but on the ground, it felt like a single vibrating mass that was too large to count.

I made my way through the throng, repeating “excuse me” and “pardon me” despite the din because the people here are above all else unfailingly polite. Someone offered me a “Fuck ICE“ pin. Someone else offered me a chocolate-chip cookie. Another offered me a red vuvuzela. All three declined to be named or interviewed.

Friday, January 30 was the second general strike in the Twin Cities since federal immigration officers killed Alex Pretti. This one was reportedly organized by Somali and Black student groups at the University of Minnesota. Unlike the first strike, held last week and endorsed by local unions, this Friday’s was more hastily organized than the first economic blackout. I heard murmurs of lower turnout this time around, which was difficult to square with the fact that the plaza was so crowded that I didn’t understand how more people could possibly fit. And yet Minnesotans kept coming. The light-rail car pulled in and through the windows I saw the people inside were standing shoulder to shoulder, and they poured out and somehow filled space that wasn’t there.

They chanted: “No more Minnesota nice, Minneapolis will strike.”

Unlike the ongoing protests outside the Whipple Federal Building, the staging area from which ICE agents depart in unmarked cars to hunt down immigrants, the mood at the City Hall rally was almost jubilant, despite the under-current of outrage and terror that is present everywhere here. At Whipple, people jeer and yell at federal agents and local sheriff’s deputies alike, and their taunts are often met with flash bangs and pepper spray. Today, there appeared to be no such danger at the City Hall rally, but if the people of Minneapolis have learned anything over the past few weeks, it’s that danger lurks around every corner. You can be sitting in your car and be killed by a federal agent. You can be doing ICE watch and be killed by a federal agent. You can be protesting that killing and be arrested by federal agents. You can be walking or driving to work and be snatched by a federal agent. You can blow a whistle to alert your neighbors that federal agents are snatching someone off the street, and you’ll end up, at the very least, pepper sprayed by a federal agent. Medics milled about, prepared for the worst.

Helicopters circled overhead. Volunteer marshals in neon vests, stationed at nearly every entrance and street corner, directed the crowd. One warned me about the ice; I didn’t hear her and slipped, but a woman behind me caught my fall.