​Minnesota in winter

By Winona LaDuke

Napoleon LaDuke was my great uncle. I’ve always had a liking for that name. My great uncle was a brown man from the Northwoods who was in World War I and came back “shell shocked.” He wasn’t even a citizen of the U.S. at the time but nevertheless — like many Native people — went across the big water to combat fascism and more. Today, he is buried in a pauper’s grave at the former Fergus Falls mental hospital.

History teaches us if we pay attention. Napoleon Bonaparte, my great uncle’s namesake, was a megalomaniac who wanted to be Emperor of the World. He did his best but met his match in Russia in winter.

In June of 1812, Napoleon's forces entering Russia exceeded 450,000 men, over 150,000 horses, approximately 25,000 wagons and nearly 1,400 artillery pieces. Seems that more were added, then more. They didn’t understand where they were, nor did they understand that trying to take a country like Russia in winter, if you were from well, the south of France, wasn’t a sound idea. The surviving forces dwindled to 120,000 men (excluding early deserters), signifying a staggering loss of approximately 380,000 lives (dead, missing or imprisoned) throughout the campaign, half from diseases.

Sort of like Minnesota in the winter. The Trump Administration and Kristi Noem were dead set on forcing Minnesota to her knees. But, as wind chills drop below zero and the ICE troops amassed from various warmer locales face the rambunctious home team, things are more complicated. The big right wing rally leader of the dud demonstration on Jan. 17, Jake Lang, is from Florida. That’s just an example.

The word is out that ICE agents don’t know how to walk on ice and don’t really like Minnesota. To address that, Trump wants to import some “paratroopers” from Alaska. According to news reports, the 1,500 soldiers on standby are from the Army's 11th Airborne Division, which specializes in cold weather operations.

If President Trump deploys active-duty military forces domestically for law enforcement or to suppress unrest, he would likely be acting under the authority of the Insurrection Act. That hasn’t been used for a hundred years or so.

As “Operation Metro Surge” expanded with over 3,000 ICE agents on the ground, there is a daunting challenge for us all. To be clear, Minnesota — and North Dakota are not even in the top ten of undocumented workers states. States like Florida, Texas and (of course) California lead in those categories.

These immigrant workers are a notable part of the agricultural economy of the country. The assault on Minnesota is clearly political. And tragic.

Here’s part of the problem: After killing lots of Dakotas and Ojibwes, Minnesota’s immigrants (many undocumented) were plucky northern people, who it seems stood for good — except for when it came to the Indians. Minnesota has a long and proud history of social justice movements, which deserve credit for creating the Minnesota we know today.

Let’s begin with the fact that many of the “new Americans” were brought in by the Lutheran and Catholic Church agencies. Take Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, now Global Refuge. The church-based organization has helped almost a half a million refugees to relocate. Most are political refugees from wars, including the Hmong, Eastern Europeans and the Somalis.

“We have spent decades nurturing community-based initiatives to support refugees,” states the Global Refuge website. “And we lead the field in refugee resettlement because of the incredible support we receive from our community partners.”

Those folks made new businesses and are integrated into the northern economies, and for sure the food systems. Now, the fact is that those refugees need Lutherans to stand up, not stand back.

Minnesotans have a history of collectives

From the Nonpartisan League to the McDonald sisters, George Floyd and the Line 3 resistance, Minnesotans stand up for what’s right. Remember, many of the first immigrants came from Scandinavia, countries with free healthcare and education, for instance. And they are used to the cold.

Immigrants came to the north country with collective ideas. Cooperatives were the norm. Cenex and even Land O’ Lakes are cooperatives. Minnesotans also appreciated collective organizing, especially on the Iron Range, where strikes led by Finnish and Czech miners in 1907 and 1916 sought better conditions. And of course, the Nonpartisan League and Socialists were the government of North Dakota at the early part of the last century, leaving behind state owned banks, grain elevators and more.

We are a sentimental bunch. Take Eugene Debs, Indiana State Representative, a Socialist and five-time candidate for U.S. President. There’s a town near Bemidji (Debs) named after him.

This is about looking out for everyone. It’s a northern thing. That’s how we survive — we take care of each other.

Famous Minnesota collectivists

A little local history: Meridel Le Sueur, the prairie poet, spoke for farmers, women and workers. Born Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota. Her best-known works include the 1932 essay “Women on the Breadlines” and the novel “The Girl.” Le Sueur’s association with communist organizations eventually led to blacklisting in the 1950s during the Cold War (that’s when we hated Russia, by the way). Then with the return of enlightened thinkers, her writing became popular again. Her stepfather Arthur Le Seur, after leaving his mayoral post, became the leader of North Dakota’s Nonpartisan League.

The McDonald sisters were four Catholic nuns — Brigid, Jane, Rita, and Kate — from an Irish farm family. They become part of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in the 1940s and 1950s. But according to the Pioneer Press, they “did not lead lives revolving around rosaries, but the teachings of Jesus.” They dedicated their lives to peace, becoming prominent figures in anti-war protests, particularly at the Honeywell Corporation. Their collective courage is remembered in many places, including a play titled "Sisters of Peace".

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was born in Minneapolis in 1968, brought about by the dire conditions and repression facing many Indigenous people who had been forced to the Twin Cities by the theft of our lands and territories. Police brutality, including a practice of throwing Indian men into the back of police cruisers, was met with opposition by founders of AIM like Pat Ballinger, Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt, Anishinaabeg from the White Earth and Leech Lake reservations. The American Indian Movement grew nationally and remains an advocacy organization with many established institutions, including the Heart of The Earth Survival School, Little Earth housing, AIM street medics, the American Indian Opportunities and Industrialization Center (one of the largest Indian job training programs), and Indian Legal Rights Centers.

Minnesota protests over the years

The Honeywell Project, formed in Minneapolis in the late 1960s and continued to the 1990s. It focused on peace through corporate accountability. Honeywell, Minnesota’s largest military contractor, made fragmentation bombs and more, which maimed innocent Vietnamese people.

Marv Davidoff, project founder, was a friend of mine and an inspiration — the “Peace Guru.” Every week, there was a vigil outside of Honeywell offices and on the bridge. On October 24, 1983, 577 people were arrested, including Erica Bouza, the wife of then-Minneapolis Police Chief Anthony Bouza.

Honeywell officially stopped manufacturing munitions and other banned weapons like anti-personnel landmines and chemical/biological weapons, stating it as a policy in their official defense fact sheets. But its former defense division (now Alliant Techsystems (ATK)) is still doing rotten things.

The Willmar 8 consisted of eight women employed by the Citizens National Bank in Willmar. On December 16, 1977, they went on strike over charges of discrimination based on their sex. The tellers and bookkeepers were asked to train junior male employees who would then be hired over their heads, repeatedly. Although their actions did result in a National Labor Relations Board decision in their favor, only four of the women returned to the bank.

The General Assembly to Stop the Powerline (GASP) was a coalition of farmers who did not want a big 400-kilovolt (kV) line to cross their land in central Minnesota. The farmers began their opposition to the line by appearing at governmental hearings and in court proceedings. When those methods weren’t successful, protesters employed more confrontational methods.

Although the farmers did not ultimately win, they fought for a long time. Once those lines and towers were installed, they became targets. At least 9,500 insulators were shot out and the towers fell to the ground after being taken out by the legs by vandals. From August 1978-August 1983, sixteen towers toppled.

The Northern Sun Alliance was a coalition of anti-nuclear groups active from 1977 to 1989. Their efforts were largely focused on the Prairie Island Nuclear Plant, located on the Prairie Island Dakota reservation. Proposals for more on-site storage of nuclear waste in the Mississippi River flood plain were met with tribal opposition and community opposition to what was then Northern States Power, now Xcel Energy. As a result of this struggle, Xcel is mandated by the state of Minnesota to fund renewable energy projects in their territory.

Movements to protect and rename sacred sites in Minneapolis and St. Paul continue to grow. And don’t forget Standing Rock on the tenth anniversary of that resistance movement, where ten thousand people showed up against big oil and for the Native people.

Times change

Minnesotans do not approve of police brutality. That’s clear. The killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin (and witnessed by three more police officers) was filmed.

The Minneapolis Uprising began on May 26, 2020, and the rage continued for several days. In response, Governor Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard, the largest deployment of the state's forces since World War II. By early June 2020, violence resulted in at least two deaths, 604 arrests and more than $500 million in damage to approximately 1,500 properties — the second-most destructive period of local unrest in U.S. history, after the 1992 LA Riots. On May 2, 2023, the conclusion of the last criminal case for the four Minneapolis police officers responsible for murdering Floyd fulfilled a key demand of protesters that Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao were legally held accountable.

Minnesota’s last occupation by a paid military was during the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3. The state deployed about $11 million worth of police financed by a foreign corporation in Calgary, Canada. Despite massive opposition to the pipeline (70,000 people testifying against Line 3, and 4,000 in favor), the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission gave approval. And then Enbridge gave lots of money — over $3 million to the Minnesota DNR for enforcement and a lot to local police forces in Cass County, Hubbard County and more.

Some 4,300 workers came from elsewhere with lots of armed security and surveillance. The occupation was broad across the north, and many Minnesotans came to join the Anishinaabe and local landholders in the resistance to big oil, particularly tar sands oil, one of the dirtiest oil pollutants on the planet. Enbridge began construction in earnest in January 2021 with the support of Governor Walz, who deemed this a project of “critical infrastructure,” which should proceed during the COVID Pandemic.

The militarized occupation of the North was carried out in the deepest of winter. Minnesota arrested over a thousand people; most of those cases were dismissed. Tragically, the pipeline went in, but alliances were born and institutions like the Giiwedinong Museum, which is dedicated to the story of the Water Protector Movement and Anishinaabe history, remain. The museum is in the former Carnegie Library-turned Enbridge office in downtown Park Rapids, Minnesota. Of the thousand Line 3 arrests, the last legal case just had a hearing in Minnesota this January. Minnesota is indeed used to conflict iIn the Deep North.

Here in the Deep North, towns like Park Rapids and Moorhead have had robust turnout for “No Kings Day" and to support all the neighbors. Lyn Dockter-Pinnick from Moorhead is a veteran of the Line 3 Battle. Since 2016, she has been working with Indivisible, organizing her neighbors and more. Hundreds of people are turning out —thousands — in these small northern towns, and on the bridges over the Red River. That’s the work of a lot of community people, meetings with coffee and lemon bars and support systems for neighbors. I’ve been really impressed with these community members, frankly.

Dockter-Pinnick is always gracious. She posts “…thanks to each and every one of you for working to unrig our democracy and fight the cruel and inhumane dangers we face today of fascism…”

Then there’s recovering Republicans like Scott Erlenborn from the Park Rapids area, who posts on Facebook. “I am the person that has been protesting with the upside-down flag for the last two weeks at the highway 71 & 34 intersection. I am not immature, confused or caught up emotionally in some false narrative from the liberal media. I know world history. I understand the grave danger this nation is in at this present moment with this president. I march each day not because I hate my country, but because I love it and hate to see what is happening to it. When drivers yell at me antagonistically ‘God bless America’, I give them the thumbs up, and say ‘Yes, God bless America!’ Because I want God to continue to bless this nation, and under Trump I know that will never happen.”

“An ancient proverb says, ‘An evil man will burn down his nation to rule over its ashes.’ That is what is happening in America today. That is what we are presently witnessing. That is why I march.” This wisdom comes from a Facebook post by Hubbard County Indivisible.

There’s a lot of things that the new, wannabe Emperor doesn’t know about my territory. For Trump and Noem, this may be their “Russian Winter.” We will see. My great uncle Napoleon LaDuke rests under a blanket of snow but reminds me always of the price of empire.

And in the meantime, I want to thank all those courageous and principled Minnesotans who sing, sled, and stand for our neighbors and our territory. Continue. History is being made.

Connect with High Plains Reader contributor Winona LaDuke at winona@winonaladuke.com.