Minnesota Men of Color

1433 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, MN

Minnesotan people of color exist within a societal structure that continues to garner European descendants with unequal privileges. Local racism is evident in the geography of Minneapolis—where people of color were forced to live in the city’s “Northside” (see: Sumner-Glenwood) and South-Central districts for nearly a century. It is also evident in St. Paul, where nonwhite citizens lived in the Rondo Neighborhood and on the city’s West Side Flats.

Minnesota Men of Color poster. Part of a campaign funded by the Ryan White CARE Act. Courtesy of the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection.

The civil rights act of 1968 made the practices of redlining and restrictive housing covenants illegal. By that time, the “Gay Ghettos” of Minneapolis and St. Paul already established near Loring Park and Grand Avenue—once exclusively-white areas. This geographic separation and other economic disparities led to a divide between white and nonwhite queer communities.

In 1999, Nicholas Metcalf founded Minnesota Men of Color (MMC) while finishing Graduate School and raising a child. The organization—serving the “Arab/Middle Eastern, Asian Pacific Islander, Chicano/Latino and Native American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) population in the state of Minnesota”—focused a sizable proportion of its attention to HIV/AIDS services."(1)

A Lakota Native American, Metcalf stated in a Gay Parent Magazine interview that “Racism is very much alive and well in the queer community by lacking inclusion of people of color.”(2)

He continued. “HRC (Human Rights Campaign) and NGLTF (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force) are not on my reservation. PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians And Gays) isn’t there either. Institutions that are sort of pro-white LGBT people are good but they don’t look or behave anything like my world. They’re part of my world in regards to being gay, they are great institutions in that sense. But they only accept part of me, not all of me.”(3)

MMC, which disbanded in 2009, was among the first organizations to specifically invest time and resources to queer people of color.

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(1)Acain, Angeline. " Yellow Hawk and the Child of His Heart: An Interview with Nicholas Metcalf." Gay Parent Magazine, 2002. http://www.gayparentmag.com/11323.html

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

Part of Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN: 100 Queer Places in Minnesota History, (1860-1969), (1969-2010)