Remembering Melvin Giles, Rondo's 'bubble man'
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Monday night at 7:30 p.m., neighbors and friends of Melvin Giles will take a peace walk through the Rondo neighborhood in honor of the longtime community advocate and activist who died in his sleep earlier this month.
Giles held many titles over the years: Co-leader of the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance, former director of the Catholic Charities Frogtown Center, community faculty member in Bethel University’s Anthropology Department and a respected elder in Rondo’s Black community.
Zoe Hollomon was a friend and colleague of Giles. She is with the Midwest Farmers of Color Collective.
She shared some of her memories of Giles with MPR News host Emily Reese.
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Do you remember the first time you met Melvin Giles?
I have to say, I was a little bit intimidated, because lots of people had told me how wonderful he was, and I felt impressed. And also, yeah, just excited to meet him, but also a little bit sheepish, maybe.
But then, as soon as I met him, he was so kind, and [it was] clear that he wanted to get to know me. And was very sweet and humble.
Many called Giles Rondo’s ‘Bubble Man.’ He liked to blow bubbles at community events. He authored a column called ‘Peace Bubbles.’ What drove his passion?
Initially, I thought, ‘Oh, that must be his thing.’ But then when I learned a little bit more about him, I learned that it was also a reminder to other people to have some levity in the situation that might be happening, or to breathe, breathing in and out, taking a pause.
He hosted these Truth and Reconciliation meetings and peace circle meetings, and a lot of conversations about race and racism and things that were heavy topics, you know, and get very personal. And sometimes people can kind of get stuck in the seriousness. And so I think that was his reminder to be people first.
He also was so passionate about community gardening. And I'm curious, if you know at all, how many gardens he was responsible for planting, and maybe that's impossible to answer.
I think you're right. I mean, I I'm sure there are so many more than we could count in his whole career and life. I believe in Rondo and St Paul, he's helped with at least 15, if not more than that.
And then I'm not exactly sure around the state and around the country, because he's certainly influenced a lot of people who were in different stages of setting up their gardens and urban farms. So it's probably a lot more than that, and I just think his footprint is at least for me and a lot of the leaders that I know who felt really close to him, were both inside and outside of the garden.
What do you hope that his legacy will be?
I mean, I think his legacy is to show myself and other organizers that connecting one to one and relational kinds of organizing is really the essence of doing social justice work — to understand that we're going to disagree and sometimes argue, but we really need to come out on the other side with an understanding that we're all important and that we shouldn't let arguments defeat the larger purpose that we have of working toward justice and larger goals for the community.
Press play above to listen to their conversation.
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