12 May 15 , 2022
as the “Minnesota miracle.” Even so, this longtime egalitarianist
state still had some of the most glaring disparities between Black
and White residents in the country.
A 2019 report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
found that only four states have a bigger chasm between Black
and White students when it comes to meeting benchmarks for
college readiness in reading. Overall, Minnesota boasts the
highest percentage of students who meet the reading benchmark
in the country and the third-highest for math — driven by the
high marks of White students — which can obfuscate these racial
disparities. While the state is one of the healthiest, researchers
and doctors found themselves flummoxed that Black mothers are
twice as likely to die giving birth than their White counterparts,
and wide gaps also exist in access to care for diabetes, heart
disease and depression. In prosperous Minneapolis, 1 in every 4
Black households lives in poverty — five times the poverty rate for
White households.
When former local NAACP president Nekima Levy Arm-
strong was first wooed to the state in 2003 to become a law
professor at the University of St. Thomas, she, too, was pitchedslipped from selling drugs to using them.
Downtrodden men and women of Third Ward looking to
escape the cycle often walked through the doors of the tiny yellow
church on Holman Street, looking for Pastor Johnnie Riles III. In
a neighborhood crippled with drugs and violence, Riles made it
his mission to find ways for people to turn their lives around. He
wanted to help them find jobs, work programs or spots in rehab
centers, but the options for men like Floyd and Hall were limited
in a state like Texas, with little social safety net. So Riles often told
those battling drug and alcohol dependency about the wonders of
Minnesota, a state that long prided itself on being conscientious
and progressive. The pastor would regularly buy them tickets for
Minnesota-bound buses and let them know there was a spot
waiting for them in a Minneapolis treatment center.
After hearing about the many successes of others who had
gone before them, both Hall and Floyd decided to take the
chance. But the promise of progress in Minnesota can be a cruel
mirage. For close to 40 years, the state’s tax code was a model of
liberal aspiration because it evenly distributed school funding
between urban and rural areas, a legislative achievement known