Minnesota

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Sixth Grade Friendship Quilt at Brooklyn Center Secondary School: Building Community Through Craft

Authored by Marissa Heim

Three quilt panels from the Friendship Quilt. Each panel is made of cardstock, decorated with markers, crayons, and pencils, and connected to other panels using yarn. Each panel represents a single student. In this image, one student’s panel expresses that playing (misspelled as “palying”) and having a house make him happy. In another panel, a student names a specific teacher as a source of happiness.

While education systems unjustly underserve students of color, tenacious and creative teachers and librarians are working hard to strengthen their school communities. At Brooklyn Center Secondary, one example is a larger-than-life, colorfully connected friendship quilt. 

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Treaties and Treachery: The Legal Battles of the 1837 Minnesota Treaty with the Chippewa

Authored by Jessica Manner

A photocopy of the Treaty of 1837.
The Treaty with the Chippewa signed in 1837, ceding the bulk of Native territory in Minnesota in exchange for payments and the rights to hunt, fish, and gather on the land. This treaty has been the basis for multiple court cases and a continuing presence of prejudice against Natives in the upper Midwest.

In 1837 the Chippewa Nation of Indians signed a treaty with the State of Minnesota, ceding most of their land in exchange for a lump sum, annual payments in goods and money for twenty years, and the right to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice in the ceded territory.

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