SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Musicians, poets and artists have shown up day after day to bring a livelier energy to an intersection in Minneapolis marked by tragedy. It's the place where George Floyd was murdered five years ago this weekend. NPR's Meg Anderson spoke to people in the community about how they have been using the arts to heal.
MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: The street corner where George Floyd died is still partly blocked today, covered in murals and mementos people have left. For some, it's a place that must be preserved. For others, it feels trapped in its darkest day. But the people who live and work here are finding ways forward, using art and music and writing.
MARQUISE BOWIE: We're doing a class tonight, man, if you're interested.
ANDERSON: Marquise Bowie is one of those people. He got out of prison in 2019. Now he leads a creative writing class at the square.
BOWIE: And this is a way that I can actually honor my mom. My mom died about eight months before I was coming home from prison, and she never got to see me at my potential.
ANDERSON: Vanessa Harrison says the classes, for her, are cathartic. At a recent one, she wrote a poem about memorials, like the one here.
VANESSA HARRISON: I have it right here. OK.
ANDERSON: She pulls a notebook out and reads some of it.
HARRISON: (Reading) The tattered roses with faded pink ribbons, the teddies whose softness has been compromised by constant exposure to unforgiving elements, communicating silently the message that trauma lives in this place.
ANDERSON: What she feels most here, she says, is heartbreak.
HARRISON: This place is known all over the entire earth as the place where George Floyd was killed. And, yes, it sparked many movements, but now that's our story.
ANDERSON: She doesn't want that to be the only story told. Up the street at the PLOT art gallery, Ace Rice, the owner, is also trying to tell other stories about the history of this place. He gestures to a painting. It shows a row of Black men swinging hammers along a train track.
ACE RICE: So the exhibit we have up now is called "Gandy Dancer." It's essentially a deep dive into the history of the laborers of the railroad here in Minnesota.
ANDERSON: Rice's great grandfather was one of those laborers.
RICE: Without the gandy dancers, no trains would run.
ANDERSON: Those workers, often immigrants and Black men, did hard labor, realigning train tracks in unison. In a way, that's what Rice is hoping to do here. He wants to uplift this street corner.
RICE: It's our attempt to continue to just do our part to push the narrative, the conversation and our history, from an artistic lens forward.
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: A few doors down at a gas station that's been vacant since Floyd's death, a group of musicians is warming up.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ANDERSON: Every Monday night for the last five years, they've met here to play.
BUTCHY AUSTIN: Rain, shine, sleep (ph), snow. We've been here in cold temperatures where horns won't work, but we show up anyways because it's bigger than ourselves.
ANDERSON: Butchy Austin is one of the group's leaders. He says the music sends a message. They're still here and they still want change. But also...
AUSTIN: It's hard to show up in the space, hear 40 people playing their instruments with all of their breath in all their lungs, and not smile and not dance.
ANDERSON: The sun is dipping low in the sky as the group starts playing, but the light is reflecting off their instruments, making it a little brighter here than it would be otherwise.
Meg Anderson, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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