Star Tribune
Edmund Boulevard renaming effort seeks to erase namesake’s racist legacy
Edmund Boulevard in south Minneapolis is a stretch of just 14 blocks, its gentle curves lined with picturesque houses with views of the parkland along the Mississippi River. But for all of Edmund Boulevard’s attractiveness, the story of its namesake reveals Minneapolis’ ugly racist past with racial covenants.
The street is named after Edmund Walton, a real estate developer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries who introduced and popularized racial covenants in Minnesota. That language written into deeds banned anyone but white people from owning or living at the properties.
And upon learning about the boulevard’s history, Mark Brandt and his friend Joe Larsen decided its name needed to go.
“When people are driving along the parkway and they turn into the neighborhood, one of the first things they’re going to see is the word Edmund,” Brandt said. “If people find out he’s this racist guy, we knew about him, but we decided not to change the signs anyway, that says something horrible about us.”
Walton’s racially discriminatory housing practices would become the blueprint for similar covenants across Minnesota, which only ended after the Minnesota legislature banned them in 1953, according to the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice project.
The effort to rename Edmund Boulevard comes after several successful campaigns to change the names of other local landmarks, including lakes, schools and streets, with controversial pasts. Lake Calhoun was renamed Bde Maka Ska because its namesake was a strong supporter of slavery. Ramsey Middle School changed to Justice Page Middle School in 2017 over its namesake’s call for the extermination of the Dakota people.
Brandt and Larsen don’t live on Edmund itself, but live nearby and pass it often. They held two informational meetings with residents in October and December so people who live on the street could ask questions or voice their opinions. The pair also created an informational website about the name change effort.
At the neighborhood meetings, residents discussed renaming the street, rededicating it to someone else named Edmund, or doing nothing. At the December meeting, four residents voted to do nothing, 10 voted for a name change and 20 voted to rededicate the street to a different Edmund.
Steven Belton, a Black man and former CEO of Urban League Twin Cities, has lived on Edmund Boulevard for 30 years and said he has never met another Black family who lives on the street. He attributes the legacy of Walton’s racist covenants and wants the street name changed.
“This is the best redress for the result of Edmund’s racist, discriminatory and exclusionary policies,” Belton said.
Belton said the effort to keep the name but rededicate it to another Edmund was upsetting as it ignores the history associated with the name simply so residents can avoid changing their address on their mailing lists.
“I want people to do what’s right,” Belton said. “I want this neighborhood to get behind it and I want the political establishment to get behind it.”
How to rename a street
In Minneapolis, residents can ask the city for a street name change if they provide a petition with the signatures of two-thirds of households on the street, plus a $300 application fee and an agreement to cover the costs to replace the signs. (There are at least 12 signs for Edmund Boulevard.)
City officials can also change a name if a council member, the mayor or the public works director asks for it.
In 2021, former Council Member Andrew Johnson helped with an effort to rename Dight Avenue, which was named after a man who championed eugenics and Adolf Hitler. It’s now called Cheatham Avenue.
While Brandt and Larsen initially wanted to collect signatures to change Edmund Boulevard, difficulties reaching residents and the costs associated with a local petition prompted them to change tactics.
The two have talked with Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, whose ward includes the area, to ask her to push for a name change.
“I am supportive of the name change. It’s an important action that we can take to signal to the city of Minneapolis and our community that we want our city to be welcoming to all people, especially Black and brown, Indigenous communities, immigrant communities,” Chowdhury said. “Edmund Walton, the person the street is named after, does not uphold those values.”
Chowdhury said more time interacting with the community is needed before she takes action to change the name.
If the effort to remove Edmund is successful, Brandt hopes the new name would honor the Black or Indigenous history in Minneapolis.
There are plans to host another meeting, but no date has been set, Larsen said.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
