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North Star Journey

North Star Journey is a celebration of communities in Minnesota and the champions who are doing the work that we should be bringing a voice to. We hope to bring new understandings of our state and what brought us to today. About | Credits

MPR News also hosts North Star Journey Live, an event series discussing topics about what Minnesota’s diverse communities need to thrive. Check it out here.

🎧 Listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or via RSS link

Once-ignored Indigenous knowledge of nature now shaping science

Once-ignored Indigenous knowledge of nature now shaping science

Traditional ecological knowledge has long been dismissed by Western culture as stories or legends, rather than real science. But there's new interest in tapping into the wisdom about plants, trees, wildlife and climate that Native American people have collected over time.
by Mathew Holding Eagle III and Kirsti Marohn

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The power of Black male educators

The power of Black male educators

Research has shown that having teachers and school staff of color can help students of color succeed. But nationally only seven percent of teachers are Black, and only two percent are Black men. American Public Media special correspondent Lee Hawkins talks about identity, curriculum, recruitment and more with four Black men who are educators.
by Lee Hawkins

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Gary Hines and Sounds of Blackness stay on mission for more than 50 years

Gary Hines and Sounds of Blackness stay on mission for more than 50 years

Sounds of Blackness is more than a band, it's a cultural institution. That, says the group's longtime director Gary Hines, was the mission given to them by a mentor at Macalester College in St. Paul, where the group was founded more than 50 years ago. 
by Lee Hawkins

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‘Where do I belong?’ Native roots, hard realities surface in woman’s search for her past

‘Where do I belong?’ Native roots, hard realities surface in woman’s search for her past

In her quest to find the birth mother she'd never known, Peggy Mandel confronted stories of government boarding schools, generational trauma and the loss of Indigenous culture and identity. She couldn’t change the past, but could she alter the future?
by Dan Gunderson

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ToolKit: How housing can shrink the racial wealth gap

Income inequality is deepening in America. Economic gains in recent decades have been unevenly dispersed, with the vast majority of the wealth going to those already on top. Part of that discrepancy is rooted in the inability to buy property.
by Sam Stroozas

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Mpls. man seeks reparations from the church that enslaved his ancestors

Mpls. man seeks reparations from the church that enslaved his ancestors

Elton Wright-Trusclair’s ancestors were among the more than 1,000 people enslaved by the Society of Jesus, many of whom toiled at Georgetown University. The church has pledged $100 million towards scholarships and other charitable causes designed to benefit descendants of the enslaved and Black communities. However, Wright-Trusclair and others say they want direct reparations.
by Lee Hawkins

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Program helps educators accurately teach Native American content in classrooms

Program helps educators accurately teach Native American content in classrooms

Most Minnesota K-12 educators say they lack access to resources they need to accurately teach lessons which include Native American content. But one teacher training program is trying to change that.
by Elizabeth Shockman

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Dreamland: Then and now

Dreamland: Then and now

Anthony Brutus Cassius broke ground in Minneapolis in the 1940s as a labor organizer and then as the first Black man to get a liquor license in the city. His aim was to create safe social spaces for Black people. Eighty years later, Mecca Bos explores his legacy.
by Mecca Bos

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