Soulforce exhibit explores the connection between the Black, Red and Brown Power movements in Minneapolis

Black Power, Red Power and Brown Power are often taught as separate movements. A traveling exhibit at Mill City Museum shows how those fights for change crossed paths in North Minneapolis.

“Soulforce: The Movements of Memory” brings Black, Indigenous and Chicano history into one conversation. Through photographs, newspaper clippings, books and videos, visual panels highlight community, events, and turning points within the movements.

Created in summer 2024 by artist and curator James Curry, the exhibit explores each community's struggles and how segregation brought them together. As residents faced many of the same problems, such as discrimination, a lack of employment opportunities, health inequities and police brutality, their movements started to overlap.

“It was almost like just neighbors showing up for other neighbors,” Curry said.

Creating the exhibit required research, community outreach and collaboration. Curry worked with designer Teresa Moses of Blackbird Revolt to develop the collage-style panels. He also interviewed elders who participated in the movements and gathered historical materials from community members, personal collections, libraries and archives.

Curry said photographs documenting the Chicano movement were difficult to find compared to others, demonstrating how some histories have not been documented and preserved as much as others.

The exhibit features national names, including Angela Davis along with local activists such as Clyde Bellecourt and Spike Moss. It also highlights activists some may not have learned about, including women and ordinary community members whose names were not always documented.

“It was kind of more about showing the unseen faces as much as I could,” Curry said.

He hopes those unfamiliar faces encourage visitors to continue learning after leaving the exhibit. “You may not know a name or a face, and it may cause one to research more on their own,” Curry said.

As Curry walked through the exhibit, he stopped at a panel featuring Gwen Jones-Davis, who worked alongside her husband, Syl Davis, at The Way, a community center that once stood on the site now home to the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fourth Precinct.

“She was just as instrumental, if not more, as Syl,” Curry said. “They were a great team.”

The Way was also a part of Northside history. Curry noted that Prince was among the young Northsiders connected to the center.

Curry later stopped at a panel dedicated to Afeni Shakur, a Black Panther and the mother of rapper Tupac Shakur. Curry said her story connects 1960s activism to the hip-hop movement that emerged in the following decades.

“Her narrative being so complex and full of challenges in producing Tupac and then the challenges that he encountered. It really links the two movements.” Curry said.

In 1969, Shakur was among 21 members of the Black Panther Party accused of conspiring to bomb police stations in New York. She represented herself during the trial and challenged the prosecution’s case. Shakur was acquitted of all charges in 1971.

The panel also highlighted how her time in jail introduced her to the experiences of queer women during the growing gay liberation movement. She later connected Black Panthers and gay liberation activists, another example of the overlapping movements Curry explores throughout Soulforce.

Although much of the exhibit examines movements from the 1960s through the 1990s, Curry said their examples of solidarity can still offer lessons today. The communities had different experiences, but their shared struggles gave them reasons to support one another.

“That kind of stuff creates bonds between people, I think, even regardless of ethnicity,” Curry said.

The exhibit also includes a content notice warning visitors that some images of violence and language may be disturbing. The Minnesota Historical Society says the material is there to preserve the historical context in which it was created and used.

Curry said the exhibit isn’t meant to tell the complete history of the three movements. Instead, he hopes it encourages visitors to learn more about the people and events showcased throughout its panels.

“Soulforce: The Movements of Memory” is on display at Mill City Museum through Oct. 4. The exhibit, located in Mill Commons, is free to view during regular museum hours.

After it closes at Mill City, Curry expects the exhibit to continue traveling, including to communities in Greater Minnesota.