PEACE Foundation: ‘a foot in both houses’
By: Isaac Peterson, III
Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder / 9/22/2004

Minneapolis City Council Member Don Samuels is probably best known for his vigils against violence in North Minneapolis, but he also has some goals for the entire city.

“Minneapolis will be the safest, most peaceful, livable city in the United States,” Samuels told us. “The age-old problems of racial divide will begin to heal. People will begin to talk about the historical problems of our community without trauma and angst. We’ll begin to heal around those differences. Our communities will be safe; you can walk down the street in any neighborhood, and it’s like the lion and the lamb are laying down together.”

That is the end goal and vision for the PEACE Foundation, a nonprofit, multifaceted group of people that Samuels has brought together recently.

Samuels said that the foundation began after a meeting with a southwest Minneapolis group called Getting to the Bottom of the Ballot. Samuels explained that “This group has periodic meetings to discuss important political issues. They wanted me to come in to talk about North Minneapolis and the whole violence thing.”

But Samuels said he wanted to do something different “and engage them in a more ‘three-dimensional’ way.” So “I brought with me 12 scenarios of people living in Minneapolis with issues they have talked to me about. That included a single mom with minor children who live in a gang-infested building. It included an immigrant family who is isolated, can’t speak the language, and people are asking them to block clubs and all that kind of thing. It included a young man who is trying to be a good student and has to catch the bus right where drugs are being sold.

“I gave [those scenarios] to them and said, ‘Solve those people’s problems; you are the high-capacity people of the city, you’re the most educated, the most problem-solving oriented people. Here you go.’”

And Samuels says they did: “I think that what they realized was that everybody was surprised at the ingenuity it took to survive; how really, deeply difficult those situations were. They were frankly troubled.”

Samuels specifically named Michelle Martin, currently director of the PEACE Foundation; Kevin Reich; and Sherman Patterson as “visionary people who heeded the call.”

Heeding the call led directly to the PEACE Foundation, which Samuels said “started out as kind of a partnership that came out of the idea that there’s this blindness between communities about what it’s like for one side or the other, and if people really knew, they would have to do something. It kind of expanded to talk about police-community — that’s another divide — and the racial divide.

“The truth is that our community is as impacted as it is because we’re divided. The idea is that we would seek to become a glue for the community, some kind of a ‘lowest common denominator’ that would bring people together to solve the problems of the community, especially violence and quality of life issues.”

Although North Minneapolis, and specifically the Jordan neighborhood are early focuses, the foundation will eventually spread to South Minneapolis as well.

Consciousness raising will be a key focus of the group. There will be “dinner exchanges,” where southside families will have dinner with northside families in their homes and vice versa. Samuels explained that “People will begin to really see how the other half lives.”

Funding will come from donations rather than grants. “We want to raise $500,000 next year, but I don’t see it as a big fat ‘endowment’ kind of foundation. I see it as relatively modest in money and very rich in human capital,” Samuels said.

Samuels hopes that the foundation will eventually take on a life of its own, apart from him. “I’m hoping that over time there will be some faces, some leadership that rises to the surface out of this: some young people,” he said.

Samuels, the descendant of a Jamaican slave who understood the value of education and passed that value to his children, sees the foundation as a direct continuation of his great-great grandfather’s vision for his family.

He explained at length: “When I go back to the little Jamaican village to visit, our family has done significantly better than the average.

“I didn’t understand why until my dad reluctantly told me the family history when I was 40 years old. Until then I had just assumed that my dad was this enlightened guy, who for some unique, intangible reason became conscious of the value of education, and he gave us that gift, and we’re just special people.

“Special my a--! [Laughs]
“I benefit directly from my ancestors being in the big [master’s] house. That’s why I’ve made the commitment that my house is a big house, not necessarily the most prosperous, but that it’s gonna be open and people are gonna come in.

“I think we need to be open on both sides, and I think if the master had spent a few nights in the field and in the shack, he would have been changed too.
“What I bring as a person is the blessing of my life... I’m beginning to, in the later years in my life, understand the connection between White and Black in my own ancestry. The consciousness of church, politics, business, community activism, [all those parts of my life] have allowed me to seek a holistic answer where all of those aspects of community can be brought together and work together for the common good and for those in greatest need, and I think it needs to be applied to America. Whites are less conscious of that. My ancestors had a foot in both houses.”

The PEACE Foundation held a fundraising and information ball on September 18. It was sponsored by Don and Sondra Hollinger Samuels, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak and Megan O’Hara, and Minneapolis Police Chief William McManus and his wife, Lourdes.

The PEACE Foundation can be reached for information or donations at 612-521-4405 or www.citypeace.org.