{"id":3950,"date":"2026-07-09T15:42:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T15:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/?p=3950"},"modified":"2026-07-13T15:50:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T15:50:34","slug":"when-cameras-leave-work-remains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/2026\/07\/09\/when-cameras-leave-work-remains\/","title":{"rendered":"When cameras leave, work remains"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The fifth and final day of KFAI\u2019s\u00a0Amplified Voices, Global Impact<\/em>\u00a0series ended with a challenge: George Floyd\u2019s murder moved the world, but global attention means little if it does not become power, policy, philanthropy, economic investment and organized political action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the cameras left, the legacy of loving and being permanently committed to Black people would not,\u201d said\u00a0Lulete Mola<\/a>, president and co-founder of the Black Collective Foundation Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conversation took place live from George Floyd Square on Radio KFAI 90.3FM\u2019s The Conversation With Al McFarlane<\/em><\/a>, a public affairs show centered on conversations with community leaders about issues affecting the Black community and the broader public. Broadcasting from Worldwide Outreach for Christ Ministries at 3808 Chicago Avenue South, host Al McFarlane said the final discussion would explore \u201cglobal connections between justice, identity, economic empowerment, culture, and collective progress\u201d across the African diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broadcast came as Minneapolis prepares to close 38th Street and Chicago Avenue<\/a> to traffic on June 8, 2026, for the 38th & Chicago Re-envisioned project, with construction expected to continue through late 2027. But Friday\u2019s conversation looked beyond the physical future of the square. It asked what happens to a global racial justice movement when the world stops watching. McFarlane framed the hour around the need for communities to \u201creclaim our democracy\u201d and organize ahead of November, saying \u201cevery moment between now and November is a moment for mobilizing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kevin Lindsey, CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center<\/a> and former Minnesota Department of Human Rights commissioner, said Floyd\u2019s murder immediately took him back to earlier cases, including Jamar Clark and Philando Castile. Lindsey said the video made him think both as a lawyer and as a Black man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy wheels were turning to think about how we might position community for success, how we might position success in the courtroom,\u201d Lindsey said. \u201cAnd just on a visceral level, being emotionally torn up because I knew what this would then mean for the community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the community\u2019s insistence on accountability was central to the legal outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was hard for folks to turn away, but it was very important for them to see it and communicate it and tell others,\u201d Lindsey said, \u201cbecause unless that happens, no measure of justice, and it was never complete justice given, but no measure of justice in the courtroom was ever going to be afforded unless we demanded it as a community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Bartee<\/a>, introduced as a Liberian-born community organizer active with the Minnesota DFL<\/a>, said the case forced him to see Minnesota as a place where the unfinished work of civil rights remained urgent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking back at George Floyd and seeing the whole world looking at Minnesota, it was surreal,\u201d Barti said. \u201cYou come to this country and, from an immigrant lens, you kind of think, all that stuff is in the past. But it brought back that Dr. King\u2019s vision has not been fully realized.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barti said the global attention created responsibility, not distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow that we\u2019re here in America and the world is watching us, we have to show that those of us who came here still are a part of this fight,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot just be watching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That global lens was central to Mola\u2019s remarks. The Black Collective Foundation Minnesota describes Mola as its president and co-founder and says the organization is Minnesota\u2019s first Black community foundation. Mola said Floyd\u2019s murder did not become a worldwide reckoning only because of the violence itself, but because of the community\u2019s response to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily the actual murder of George Floyd, may he rest in peace, that ignited a worldwide awakening,\u201d Mola said. \u201cIt is our community\u2019s response to it, the fact that we came together and said we are intolerant of this racism and this anti-Blackness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She traced her own Black identity to being born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia<\/a>, and raised with an \u201cabundant Black identity,\u201d saying her mother would tell her, \u201cYou are as great as the Nile.\u201d Coming to the United States, she said, meant confronting a country that told Black people they were \u201cless than.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That tension shaped how she entered philanthropy after Floyd\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was like, what is my proximity to power?\u201d Mola said. At the time, she was working at the Women\u2019s Foundation of Minnesota and knew \u201cthere were resources that flowed every day about us and did not include us at the table.\u201d She said she called Chanda Smith Baker<\/a> and Repa Mekha<\/a> with a clear message: \u201cYour sympathy is good, but we need real transformational change.\u201d  The group that emerged, she said, was first called the Philanthropic Collective to Combat Anti-Blackness and Realize Racial Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t playing games,\u201d Mola said. \u201cWe were going to call a thing a thing.\u201d Floyd\u2019s death, she added, \u201cwas not this singular moment with this police officer. It was from the time he was born, and every single system that he touched needs to be addressed and transformed. And philanthropy has a big part in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peter Frosch, CEO of GREATER MSP<\/a>, said Floyd\u2019s murder changed how the region was seen internationally. GREATER MSP describes itself as the regional economic development partnership for Minneapolis-Saint Paul, with Frosch listed as CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m abroad, I\u2019m an American,\u201d Frosch said. \u201cThere are a lot of questions about America in this moment.\u201d He said people in cities including Tokyo, Sydney and Amsterdam connected Floyd\u2019s story to injustices in their own countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Frosch, the central question became \u201cwhat comes next.\u201d \u201cOut of pain and tragedy and loss, there\u2019s energy,\u201d Frosch said. \u201cWhat we see here is the motivation to create something new.\u201d He said the region must move beyond \u201cprograms and initiatives and pilots\u201d into \u201csystems and institutions and policies\u201d and \u201cmarkets,\u201d because that is where deeper change happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He pointed to the GroundBreak Coalition<\/a> as one example. GroundBreak says its 2034 goals include 11,000 homeowners, 5,000 businesses and 60 new developments, while Minnesota Housing reported that the coalition announced nearly $1 billion in early commitments to expand wealth-building opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is something big,\u201d Frosch said. \u201cThat\u2019s the scale that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McFarlane also read from an Insight News article describing Floyd\u2019s global impact, citing protests from Rio de Janeiro to Bristol, London, Colombia and Africa. Globally, Floyd\u2019s death sparked demonstrations across more than 50 countries, according to The Guardian, while the United Nations said his death galvanized worldwide protests against racism and discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hour closed with Al Flowers<\/a> tying remembrance back to political organizing through the United Black Legislative Agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you for keeping it going, keeping remembering, because they want to forget what happened to George Floyd,\u201d Flowers said. \u201cWe got to keep it alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For McFarlane, the final lesson of the week was that visibility is not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLasting change requires more than moments of visibility,\u201d he said. It requires \u201csustained connection, investment, leadership, and collective action.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fifth and final day of KFAI\u2019s\u00a0Amplified Voices, Global Impact\u00a0series ended with a challenge: George Floyd\u2019s murder moved the world, but global attention means little if it does not become power, policy, philanthropy, economic investment and organized political action. \u201cWhen the cameras left, the legacy of loving and being permanently committed to Black people would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[155,2569,2568,2567,38,2570],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-george-floyd","tag-john-bartee","tag-kevin-lindsey","tag-lulete-mola","tag-minneapolis","tag-peter-frosch","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Insight-News-Website-Images-11.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3952,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions\/3952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}