‘A steadfast presence:’ Minneapolis community mourns the passing of AIM leader Frank Paro
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
For the past several days, members of Frank Paro’s family, friends, and members of the community have gathered at Pow Wow Grounds — a coffee shop and community gathering place — to mourn and to remember Frank Paro.
Community members lit a fire in honor of Paro outside the coffee shop and shared their stories of him, a tradition in many Ojibwe families and communities.
Robert Lilligren heads the Native American Community Development Institute, a nonprofit in south Minneapolis. Paro was a regular visitor to the Pow Wow Grounds, which shares a building with the nonprofit.
“When I think of Frank Paro, I think of a steadfast presence in a community. He might not be the loudest person in the room, or jumping in front of the room to speak, but he was always there, and it was always reassuring,” Lilligren said.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Four years earlier, as unrest engulfed Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd, the parking lot outside their shared building had become a makeshift headquarters for providing safety and community for neighborhood residents.
Lilligren remembered how the community decided not to use plywood sheets to cover up the windows throughout the neighborhood. Instead, they decided to form a community patrol and deploy it across the neighborhood.
The decision to form a community patrol was one that had its roots in the patrols first organized by the American Indian Movement beginning in the late 1960s.
Paro, alongside other community leaders, helped to organize and lead a patrol of several hundred people. Together, those community patrols launched a community patrol that kept people safe and safeguarded neighborhood organizations, businesses, and homes.
Robert Lilligren recalled that the patrol launched from the parking lot.
“Frank was core to that leadership and bringing people together. People were coming down from the reservation. At the end of the day, it was over 500 hundred volunteer protectors helped protect our community,” said Lilligren. “Franklin Avenue didn’t burn … Frank was right at the hub of all of that.”
Lisa Bellanger, daughter of AIM founder Pat Bellanger, grew up in the American Indian Movement. She and Paro patrolled the neighborhood together during the unrest. Bellanger said Paro was a compassionate leader who led by example.
“He was hands on with our patrol and security. He didn’t run it from an office or a car, he was right outside. Ready to jump or step in, and block and whatever we needed to do,” said Bellanger.
Paro was a member of AIM for several decades, a part of the generation of leaders and activists that founded the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis in the late 1960s. AIM formed in response to police violence.
Community leader and civil rights activist Spike Moss worked alongside Paro for over four decades leading on social justice issues. He described Paro as a person dedicated to human rights.
“Frank was at the front. He was so loyal and dedicated to the struggle, to the movement, to Clyde, to the people,” Moss said. “And he did it for so long. He stood up.”
Moss said his relationship with Paro and Bellecourt went back to a time in the late 1960s when Black and American Indian activists organized community patrols on both the northside and southside of the city.
“The relationship stood strong. We were running back and forth helping each other,” Moss said.
Moss, who said he came to Minnesota from the south, recalled marching alongside Paro and Bellecourt at AIM marches during winter months.
“I did not ever march in the cold. Frank and Clyde made me march in the cold. I had never done that,” Moss recalled with a chuckle.
Most recently, Moss and Paro worked together on public safety issues. The two had led a community mediation team formed to hold Minneapolis police accountable to Indigenous, Black, immigrant and communities of color.
“He was a phone call away,” said Moss. “He was a blessing that will surely be missed because ... that humanity in him mattered. The decency in him mattered. The fairness in him mattered,” said Moss.
Paro died last Saturday due to health complications. He was 72.
A celebration of life for Paro will be held at the Minneapolis American Indian Center from 1 p.m. through 5 p.m. The celebration will be open to the public.