These Are The Minneapolis Activists Leading The Push To Abolish The Police

When, on June 7, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council went onstage at a rally organized by Black activists and took turns reading a pledge to dismantle their city's police department, many in the crowd at Powderhorn Park let out not just cheers, but full-throated screams.

Here are three of the people at the center of that effort:

Like many of the young organizers leading the push to disband the Minneapolis police, Kandace Montgomery was among the activists who, in 2015, spent 18 days occupying a North Minneapolis police station to protest the killing of Jamar Clark, a 24-year-old Black man who police shot in the head.

Within 48 hours of Floyd's killing, as protests and riots engulfed the city, Montgomery and her co-organizers were on the phone and at City Hall, pressing council members — who already knew them well — to commit to dismantling the police.

The Black Visions Collective had already planned its rally at Powderhorn Park for the next day, and Montgomery said she knew based on conversations with City Council members that some of them would be showing up to pledge support for ending the police department.

And Nason said members of MPD150, some of whom are also in the Black Visions Collective, helped draft the statement that the City Council members read when they pledged to abolish the police at the rally in the park earlier this month.

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