New MPR radio documentary explores program bringing Minneapolis police officers, Black community members together

NINA MOINI: You're listening to Minnesota Now. We want to highlight some important work happening in our newsroom. MPR news host, Angela Davis, will be premiering a radio documentary on her show tomorrow morning at nine. It's about the Police and Black Men Project, which brings together a group of Minneapolis police officers and Black community members on a trip to Montgomery, Alabama. Angela joined them on a recent trip. And she joins me now in the studio with a preview of tomorrow's show. Thank you for being with us, Angela.

ANGELA DAVIS: Hey, Nina.

NINA MOINI: Yea, Angela Davis, I think this is a first for you on the noon show. We welcome you.

ANGELA DAVIS: I'm excited.

NINA MOINI: I mean, what an incredible and powerful opportunity that you had here. MPR news was invited to go with these officers, most of whom are white, and community members who are all Black. Why was this something that you wanted to document, Angela?

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, you might know-- our listeners might know, too-- I love a challenge. But I also enjoy leaning into uncomfortable conversations, especially if it results in a better understanding of something. And right now especially, too, I like hearing about solutions to difficult problems.

And Nina, think about-- I mean, just look at what has happened in Minneapolis in just the last 10 years with a series of high profile police brutality cases, protests, the occupation of the fourth precinct in Minneapolis in 2015, the burning down of the third precinct in 2020. And the Minneapolis Police Department, that department has been in the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons, including the recent findings of the investigations by the State Department of Human Rights, as well as the Department of Justice, resulting in two consent decrees.

So in the midst of all of that, I don't that people knew that there was a group of Minneapolis police officers quietly meeting with community members to talk about how to mend relationships and build trust. And so they have started organizing trips to museums and historical sites in Montgomery, Alabama, a place that was once the capital of the Confederacy, to get a better understanding of the history of racial segregation and slavery in America.

And, Nina, the goal is to try to connect the past to the present, to get a better understanding of the distrust that law enforcement is dealing with today.

NINA MOINI: So tell us about this group that you went with on the trip.

ANGELA DAVIS: So you mentioned the name of the program. It's called the Police and Black Men Project. And this is a group that was officially formed in 2017, after the fatal police shootings of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis in 2015, and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights back in 2016. A co-founder of the project is Bill Doherty. And you've heard Bill Doherty on the news here on MPR a lot. He's a longtime therapist and a professor at the University of Minnesota. He just retired.

But Bill organized the trip in December. It included six white Minneapolis police officers and one Black officer, who's also the inspector of the fourth precinct in north Minneapolis, and about 10 community members who are all Black who went on the trip, and all of them interested in public safety. Now these community members, they cover a wide range of backgrounds. Some of them lead nonprofits. One works for the city of Minneapolis.

A couple of them are formerly incarcerated. One teaches at the U of M. And I want you to listen to one of those community members as he described to me why he is spending time meeting with these police officers on a regular basis. This is Brantley Johnson, who works with the Father Project. I interviewed him after we toured the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery.

ANGELA DAVIS: A lot of people in the community have a hard time believing that there are police officers, specifically Minneapolis police officers, who really do care and who really want to change the state of this relationship, this trust that is lacking. What do you say to that when people are questioning, really, the intent of these conversations?

BRANTLEY JOHNSON: We have to meet them at their hardest moments, just like they have to meet us at our hardest moments. Because at the end of the day, we all have one heart. And it bleeds the same color, no matter what.

NINA MOINI: And I understand that one of the stops on the trip was the Legacy Museum. Can you tell us about that museum and the impact you saw it had on the group?

ANGELA DAVIS: Oh, yes. And some people may have heard of the Legacy Museum. It was started by Bryan Stevenson, who is a civil rights attorney. It pulls you back in time and fully immerses you in the daily life of enslaved people, as well as people living through the most brutal years of racial segregation in the Jim Crow South. Videos, pictures, sculptures, sounds, even holograms, Nina, and it really can be overwhelming. It takes a few hours to actually see it all.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

ANGELA DAVIS: And it's very impactful. I can play an excerpt, too, of the documentary, because I want you to listen to one of the white police officers describe what it was like for him to spend hours at the Legacy Museum, taking in all the images. This is Sergeant George Warzinik talking in one of the small-group discussions right after we had lunch at the Legacy Museum.

GEORGE WARZINIK: You know, the lynchings, my image was always this mob stormed the police station or something. The officers are so overwhelmed, they looked away.

ANGELA DAVIS: George Warzinik is a veteran police officer in Minneapolis' fourth precinct.

GEORGE WARZINIK: But there was that headline, said there was a lynching scheduled for tomorrow at 5:00. This is cold, calculated. It's booked. It's scheduled. And the governor said he couldn't do anything about it. The governor-- we're not talking about the local police guy down there with two deputies who was overwhelmed. So the organizational part of it, that just really struck me.

NINA MOINI: It's fascinating to listen to people make those connections and all the feelings that it invokes in everybody. I'm curious, Angela, why you think this experience of traveling together-- why do you think it works?

ANGELA DAVIS: Well, what I saw, it's different than sitting down and, like, let's have a conversation. As a group, they are all sharing this experience at the same time. And it's really about focusing on everybody listening to one another and not preaching to each other, because that has really been, I think, a barrier in trying to kind of reach a common ground on understanding history or even wanting to explore it.

Bill Doherty, who I mentioned, is the co-founder of the Police and Black Men Project, he explains it well. I interviewed Bill when we got back to Minnesota. Listen to him on this.

BILL DOHERTY: Part of my whole thing about interracial communication, it doesn't work if somebody is there setting out to enlighten you. People recoil against that. A lot of what people say we need, a conversation about race, is not really a conversation because it sets up Black people to inform white people about the Black experience. And white people don't get to say much except to say thank you or to resist, right? But this is, we're doing it together. We're having this experience together.

ANGELA DAVIS: You're witnessing it at the same time.

BILL DOHERTY: And everybody's learning. You know, a Black officer said he thought he had a PhD in Black-- being Black. But, no, there's a lot more to learn.

NINA MOINI: What do you think that the officers and community members learned from each other, Angela?

ANGELA DAVIS: I think there was this realization that we all have a lot more to learn about history, whether you're Black or white. And what comes with that knowledge is that this wisdom, it can greatly impact how you respond to people and situations today. You can make more informed decisions. You can have more empathy. And also, I think there was this shared knowledge that the reality is that a police officer's uniform carries with it a very painful past.

NINA MOINI: Did you take anything away from this trip that really resonated with you?

ANGELA DAVIS: Yeah, I mean, it was encouraging to see that, that people of vastly different backgrounds can really can have civil conversations, but in the right environment and with some coaching and some clearly defined boundaries. I also learned while I was there that my cooking, Nina, is not nearly as good as I thought because I'm a child of the South. The Southern cuisine at the restaurants there in Montgomery, just amazing. I'm not as good as I thought.

NINA MOINI: That's another documentary. That's part two.

ANGELA DAVIS: Part two. But also, really, I realized, I think what I already believe is that we all have more in common than we think. And if we sit down together next to each other, have meals together and really talk when we're not in crisis, we can connect and form more healthy relationships.

NINA MOINI: And we know one of the greatest parts of your show is that you take callers every day. And so you're inviting folks to join the journey. What do you hope people take away from tomorrow's show, the airing?

ANGELA DAVIS: Right, so to be clear, so tomorrow is the taped documentary. You're going to hear the discussions that these officers and community members had together, these intimate conversations. And then on Thursday, people will be able to call in and share their responses or their questions, as I have some of them in the studio with me live. That's on Thursday.

But I hope people just take away some hope and optimism that things really can improve, and that a police department is made up of individuals. And many of those individuals are sincerely trying to learn how to do their jobs better and earn the community's trust.

NINA MOINI: Angela, thank you for being with us. And thank you for your work. It's very important.

ANGELA DAVIS: Look for photos, too, on the website mprnews.org, beginning tomorrow.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely, thank you. You can hear the documentary again about Angela's trip to Montgomery, Alabama, with members of the Police and Black Men Project. It's tomorrow at 9 AM here on MPR News with Angela Davis. And, of course, check out those photos she mentioned, tons of them at mprnews.org