No Titles, Just Tasks: Social Ecologies in South Minneapolis

Jay Webb has been a fixture in many scenes throughout the Twin Cities, most often popping up with a desire and drive to help create lasting, supportive space for a dynamic, though at times struggling, social landscape. Whether making music, fixing a staircase, or working a garden, Webb has his hands in many situations that all lead back towards mutual support. 

In the days following the State muder of George Floyd in our neighborhood, Jay went to the intersection of 38th St. and Chicago Ave. to see how he could help, which is a familiar response for him. That particular response helped frame and create space for growth and transformation at what came to be known as George Floyd Square—but also further afield: throughout our neighborhood, and on the growing international landscape of healing and justice.

Confluence Studio

Sam Gould (SG): Last night, Douglas and I were talking about how simple designs create expansive effects—-how paring things down to their essence is a pathway towards effective cooperation. A low barrier of entry means lots of people can take part. After George Floyd was murdered, your response—-to head up the street—was exactly this. It was very practical, as well as creative. It was expansive. It allowed a platform for lots of different things to take shape. And it was simply saying, “Let's put a little roundabout in the middle of the road here.” That was your first response. 

Jay Webb (JW): So what I haven't told a lot of people, is that my first response—-the absolute first reason for why I was there was Covid. I was spraying tea tree oil, lavender, and patchouli. All these aromatic, therapeutic oils. Some people, they’re throwing flowers out, and they were like, “What are you doing?” “Oh, you just making the flowers last?” I was like, “Yes, something like that.” Even the mayor was down there. I sprayed tea tree oil around him. And I said, “Look, this can help with Covid and airborne illness. This cleans the air.” That's why I've always smelled that way! In the first few days, there was just flowers, but I was able to spray. 

And then, you know, Jordan [Powell Karis] made his Black Power fist. It was just sitting there. They’d just put it in an alley. And they weren’t sure what to do with it, you know? A warrior has to have the confidence to make a weapon. And then an experienced warrior has the confidence to take his weapon and utilize it. In his youth, Jordan said “I have the confidence to make this.” “Me and my experiences. I have the confidence to utilize them.” I slept on it and came up with a plan. So that Sunday we had this whole progression. Picked it up. We carried it to the middle of the intersection. It was raining that day. That was June 12, 2020. It was that Sunday. Monday came, and I brought wood. I found some during the riots and then brought along some brick I’d come across. And I started making the form for the roundabout. I sat there for almost six, eight hours, thinking about how it was gonna work, and it's… “Okay, just build it like an egress window.” I put my pebbles down like dirt, my drain tile, and then I got soil. You know, I didn't do it all by myself, but what I had was that I knew how to do it.

SG: Well, it's an act of composition. It's not a matter of “all by oneself.” Nobody ever does anything all by themself. But the idea of, “Okay, everybody, let's put these things into place. You over there, you’re really good at this, look at this amazing thing you've done.” Being able to arrange social space and material surplus is a skill. You have these amazing capabilities, and to be able to mindfully shape and arrange people's skills into something stronger than their parts is essential right now. It’s exactly what we needed then, and what we continue to need.

JW: And that's exactly what happened. 

SG: It's the opposite of the way we’re told leadership should be.

JW: Yeah, yeah. It's true. The king is a servant of all. And so the servant doesn't say, “Come and do this for me.” How may I help you? Yeah. How may I help you? How can I help this team win? 

That’s the mindset. I tell people this all the time. If people try to point their finger around, that's fine, but leadership is about how may I help you? No titles, just tasks. That's why we showed up. And we took all the things from the riot, everything that we had, and put it there. And people, they kept bringing them flowers, and I'm like, “Well shoot, we got to figure out a way to keep all these flowers.” A garden, you know, needs rich soil. So we created a bio-intense garden, where you can grow many things in one space. That's why, at the roundabout, you see perennial prairie flowers, right? Those need five to six feet of root space. But they're in six to eight inches of space! That's how rich the soil is. That's also how rich our world is. We just… in our youth, everybody was sedimentary. I like that metaphor. Everyone was really literally sedimentary. Unfortunately, we're out there because of what happened to George. They turned everything, and so now the seeds start to grow. 

I drew out the design for the garden as a Star of David. It's not about being religious or proselytizing. It's about divine mathematics. Health, love, life, healing, prosperity. It's a medicine garden. I was out on the Yankton Sioux reservation. We planted 1000s of seeds: lavender, sunflowers, multiple pollinators. Vegetable gardens. I went out because Chief Galen saw a vision of all these flowers, but it had not come yet. But we connected up at Square. 

Everyone was incorporated. I was there for 580 days. Every time someone came, I’d ask, “Where are you from? Oh, Lithuania? Come, I gotta go plant.” When people came, we gardened together. All the plants were rescues. They were all being thrown out. I had this challenge to bring these plants that were dying to a place where people needed to see more beauty. More life. We did it intentionally. It was for all the mothers. We're digging out all the history from Sierra Leone, from Brazil, from Mexico, everywhere. We're taking out the bad things, and we're replenishing with something good. And the Native folks, they will bring the tobacco. People will be dancing around this place, just in celebration. We were remediating. It was a very allegorical moment: this small piece of dirt at the center at 38th and Chicago. Creating space for people to offer dirt, representing dirt from their land, to throw on top of the asphalt. Dirt and the clearing of history. Because we planted more than a garden. It was a harbinger of truth. We built a community of life, and what the world has experienced is world peace. It is experiencing it now. People say, “Well, Ukraine and Ukraine and Russia are fighting.” But what I say is like Nietzsche, that in times of peace, warmongers wage wars on themselves. The reason why we put the dirt there is so nobody will ever be able to pass without honoring. 

In the past, when someone was lynched, they would take the dirt, put it in the jar, put the name on it, and that was it. I felt like I took everything that I couldn't say from the dirt. You know, “This is for George, and for everyone.” I just met this guy, Lenny Duncan, and gave him seeds to take back to Portland. What is growing? It’s a really important question. It's that Lenny Duncan is growing. Everything is growing continuously. It's organic. We started this community to grow things. To be a light. This beacon has shined in and shone on us. And now instead of people going to the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument, they come here. I think that’s meaningful. It’s not incidental.

SG: People show up from all over. Many people have talked about wanting folks to always remember what happened at that site. But for people in the neighborhood, that simple act of creating a roundabout is meaningful on a daily basis. Not as a monument, but as something socially elemental. Something habit forming based in history we share. I mean, I know I'm not the only person in the neighborhood who refuses to drive over that spot, right? 

No matter what the city does, in the end, whether they clear the area for that stupid bus route and everything goes “back to normal,” I’m not driving there. The origin of the roundabout, it's a simple act to disrupt this Jeffersonian Grid, right? And for a very specific reason, which is remembrance and respect. The placement of the roundabout is a reminder, literally and metaphorically, that you make your own detours. You have a choice, again, as metaphor and deliberate act, not to cross that path now or ever again. And it's in place, simply, by just putting this minor impediment there. A reminder. It makes people pause for a second, provides space in a so-called busy day to figure out, literally, their path through the city, but it's also a parallel path. A social path for how they want to comport themselves in this place with other people. Who do you stand with? And I think most people who live in the neighborhood want to do that with respect, and so as a daily act of remembrance they don't drive through that spot. I love how that comes about from a very simple but meaningful act—your placement of the roundabout. 

JW: What I always tell people, when they drive through and they’re taking pictures as they slowly roll by, is, “No! You park your car.” Surely this is a place that people can pass through. But now it is mostly a place for people with compassion to experience compassion. It’s “You have compassion? Park your car, get out and walk. You might just receive something.” It's a past, present, future place. Meaning, the people that wanted to do more in the 60s, and they couldn't because their parents said, “You know, if you do, I'm going to disown you. If you do, you’re going to get hurt. You’re gonna get killed. If you go there, we and all your friends will ostracize you, if you stand up for those Black people.” Right? Some of them, back then, said, “I don't care.” But some of them were too afraid of losing what they loved. Their family, friends, social standing. And then something like this happened. The past becomes present, and it gave them an opportunity. They say, “You know what? I can do it now.” I met a lady that was 82, or 87, something like that, from the hills in Arkansas. She asked me, “Are you from Little Rock?” Which I am. We both knew, back in the day, if you were Black and you were in those hills, you weren’t coming back. But here she is now. She's here at George Floyd Square. 

This is probably a month after. Before all the media was there picking things apart, she was there, and with tears in her eyes. You know… hug me, Covid, I don't care. God bless you. I'm 6’ 9”. This woman, she's like, 5’ 1”. Those are the type of barriers that have been broken down. People from Tulsa, Oklahoma in their 70s, 80s who heard stories [about the Greenwood Massacre]—they knew what happened, and you know what they said. “No, I'm coming up!” It's pretty remarkable. And we didn't just stop at the circle. There’s the avenue garden. The greenhouse. There’s multiple spots. There’s the Say Their Names graveyard. 

SG: I found the greenhouse such a meaningful space. It was harmonious, in a way, with the roundabout. It's an enclosure, but it's an enclosure in a space that projects meaning. Symbiosis. It projects care. In that way it acts as a conduit to the roundabout. A space of quiet communion and council, in that if you were in there it was usually just two people—whoever came in, and you, Jay, tending to the starters. People would see you going in and out. It also represented a functionality in this space, the Square, because if you weren't paying close attention, it might have seemed dysfunctional. I love that… being able to see this very practical thing in the midst of everybody doing their own thing.

JW: There was this little girl. She had cerebral palsy, she could only get around in a chair. She saw what was happening at the Square. Her parents drove her from Chicago. We have people who can charter helicopters, even people that can fly to the fucking moon? I didn't see Elon Musk there. But I saw this young lady who could move only one finger. She begged her parents to take her. They had a 350 pound chair to load and unload, to drive the six hours between here and Chicago. That says a lot. It says that George Floyd Square, you know—it's a place where everyone can come to heal. You know, the President gets to heal. But he didn’t come. We took the time, because I was there with them, to help people through that process. But the city staff wasn't there for that type of leadership. The Council wasn't there. The people who came, they needed leadership, but not like what they had been used to. They needed service leadership. That's what we did. And so, personally, and along with other folks who stayed for the long haul, we took care of the things you took care of. I learned my compassion in the garden. I learned so much, just considering the ants. [Laughs.] Just considering the ant who prepares for the winter in the summer—-you know, considering the birds and the bees and the flowers, and all of that. The seasons they go through. Taking the time to consider things in the context we were in. People coming and seeing how beautiful flowers are. That was the number one reason why I put the flowers there: so that we can see ourselves in the earth and the flower. They came to see something of George, and you know… you are all the flowers you see. These are reflections of who you are. 

The world is processing so much. We're at the forefront of it. I took care of the plants and the soil. What I always ask people, when they arrive, is for their admittance fee, which is to repeat after me: “It's not how good I am. It's how good I want to be.” “You understand this?” I understand that you've heard this, and that's the admittance fee into that space. It's not how good I am, it’s how good I want to be. That's our weapon against all the things that have tried to hold us back. Unite and untie have the same letters. And when you untie people from their fears or from things that control them, you'll unite them. Oppression doesn’t only hurt the one at the end of the boot. It also hurts the person in the boot. And their children, the kids of the ones wearing the boot, have had to pay for this as much as the oppressed children have had to pay for it. We’ve experienced a time where we all had to come face to face with that and say this: before the whole world, over one dark body.

SG: In those first few months following his murder, it definitely did have that feeling of a very fraught communion, right? Of people going there, and being incredibly raw and willing to absorb and hold what was there, with one another. Which was a remarkable thing to witness. 

You know, not everybody is going to understand exactly the space that we're describing, George Floyd Square. They may have seen it in photos, but living in the neighborhood, we have a very different understanding of things. For me, the way people have arranged themselves there says a lot. Maybe more than can be explained in words. Maybe it’s something that can only be absorbed in place over time. But could you just very practically say, structurally, here's what we've got? Now you arrive at 38th and Chicago, middle of the street and outward, what is there?

JW: Okay, so actually, before you get there, when you get to one of the four corners on Chicago Ave. [North or South], or 38th St. [East or West], what you'll see is a fist. A power sign of unity, made out of wood. It’s your entry point, saying, “We're not swinging our fists, but we're raising them in our unity for each other.” That's your first embrace. 

And when you move through the streets, you'll see murals. You see paintings. North / South, these are long, Midwestern blocks, and so from 37th up to 38th, on Chicago, are all these dedications to all these people who have perished  or been falsely incarcerated. Big, block letters on the pavement. Just—all those who have been forgotten, so to speak, until you arrive to the middle, and you see this roundabout: a lush garden, depending on what time of the year you're there. 

As I mentioned, it’s broken into fifths. A Star of David. This is the healing garden. It's this twelve-foot face with eight-foot corners. It's an eight-inch-deep garden, on top of concrete that has all recycled old plants that we recovered. But when you look all around, what you see are multiple small gardens, in various shapes and triangles, and other circles and squares, up and down the block. These are all organic gardens, and we've taken the opportunity of making them with intent. Meaning, we can grow much more in a smaller space. That was meaningful, to show the world we can solve the shortage of land and farming by increasing land for farming. With news and camera crews there all the time? Show them this. 

If you look down the avenue, not even a quarter of a block, you see, three parking spaces. We have 4000 seedlings that have already grown in there. Fresh, organic arugula, herbs, fresh dill, lavender, rosemary, tomatoes, squash, beans, corns, watermelon, all of that on top of the street. On top of asphalt. Those are capillary irrigation gardens, meaning they’re being fed  from the bottom. When you look over to the left, you see the Speedway. Now it's called People's Way. It used to be a gas station, and people—we come and we gather in the morning, and we gather in the afternoon, and we meet as a community. 

The gas station has become a commons. The conversations aren’t always about planning or strategy, or anything like that. It's mostly, just, “Bill, how are you? How can we help each other?” Because people are coming. Someone from North Carolina is coming today, or there's 300 teachers that are coming. Or we have 2000 students that are coming. We ask how each other are, and what's being prepared for. It seems like we've prepared for the whole world. People try to come help and “organize us.” People from the McKnight Foundation, they came and visited us. Yeah, right. But we, ourselves… we’re weird. Not organized so much. 

So then, if you walk down the avenue going North, you'll find the most beautiful and most horrific thing ever. There’s a small park, really an open field, off Chicago Ave., and two artists placed rows and rows of white tombstones there. Like a veterans’ cemetery. Like a national cemetery for veterans, where all the names are people who were taken? Killed by police. It’s so vast, hundreds of names, and it doesn’t even scratch the surface. And you walk by each one. Each one was taken early, you know. 

And as you pass by, you'll see murals. You see messages. It’s a space to sit, to contemplate and commune quietly. This is our space to acknowledge, and to be in remembrance of all these people that have suffered: you know. That have suffered. Why have so many mothers, daughters, fathers, and sons have to fear for each other's life when they just go to the store? When they just, you know, go anywhere in the world? 

So, at the end of this place, you see the grave. But in the heart, you see the life? My hope is that people not only come to visit, but they go and create something where they are. A garden, a piece of healing. Intentionally, you know? Intentionally, you can start with two or three seeds. Everything can seem small at first, but it's more than everything else we have before we do it. And you just don't know who it is going to affect right now. There's someone there at George Floyd Square, and I'm here, with you, on the other side of the neighborhood, but they are being affected by our responses. Because the proper response to love is love. And love is linking our values and efforts. And that's what we did. We linked our values and effort. By doing so, we began to untie the world from white supremacy. We exposed the strings, and everyone's gonna take a turn at cutting them. 

SG: It's gonna take a while.

JW: Yeah, but they can't hide them anymore. We see the strings attached. Now we have clarity. As the world, we have to also have clarity and our purpose. But the walls that were up between Black, white, digital, spatial—they’ve fallen. And now we're embracing each other. And if you don't believe me, go check the map out at the Square. There’s a big map of the world, and people place a pin where their home is. That map has so many pins on it. It's from all around the world. Those pins say, “Hey, I'm here, and I represent. I stand for peace and solidarity.” 

SG: All of what you just said reminds me of something that I feel is very elemental to you. That draws me to you—this tendency towards seeing the surplus around us, and figuring out how to build a giving infrastructure based on that surplus. You do that all the time, Jay. You know, when we were at the Roberts lot, you'd swing by and be like, “I have a bunch of trees! Where should we plant them?” I think there's something really important about that mentality. “No, actually, there is a wealth around us. An abundance. There is an abundance!” All while everyone else is seeing a deficiency. A lack. Maybe you can speak a little bit about the practical aspects of putting that into daily use, because that's exactly how everything happened at the Square. It happened because people saw an abundance of so many things. Not just materials, but hearts, knowledge, belief, energy. But those are only models. It's not about capturing and containing that mentality. It's about influencing others to have a very similar habit of seeing abundance and reuse all around.

JW: That is our wealth, that way of thinking. I didn't waste the flowers or the soil or the fertilizer, any of the wood or dirt or brick, because I knew they were all going to the dump. I'm gonna go ahead and grab it. 

Speaking of dump, with the City of Minneapolis, we have that opportunity. With the same principles of reuse that we used at George Floyd Square, we can do the same at the Roof Depot site on a much larger scale. [The “Roof Depot” is a contest site in Minneapolis’ 9th Ward. A now-shuttered polluting industrial site that the City of Minneapolis plans to take over. Their plan, to many, continues the long held practice of private and public sites of pollution being located in neighborhoods of color and low income neighborhoods. The neighborhood has worked for years to offer an alternative – SG]. The City created a Zero Waste Program, but they have had to cook it so far. It’s hardly Zero Waste. 

SG: What's interesting is, it’s all really the same thing. Looking at the choices the City makes, each of those sites are seen as a place where they could inflict and contain violence. The Roof Depot site was a site of pollution right here in the neighborhood for decades, an asthma causing machine. But they could care less, because of where it was. And now they're continuing to try to do something very similar with the neighborhood in full—in the narrative of the Square, and how they want to transform and take management of that site. They want to contain and control what they see as the inevitability of pain and suffering.

JW: Exactly. What we offer is an opposing narrative. Everything that we’ve done at the Square on a small scale can be done at the Roof Depot, on a scale that would benefit the whole city. But the same game that’s being played by the City at George Floyd Square is in how they’re negotiating with folks about the future of the Roof Depot.

It’s just about activation. Any garden is about creating space for activation for things to grow. What we've learned so far at George Floyd Square is we can make a garden in the desert. But we are the George Floyd Global Memorial. That’s on us. The people there, they take care of all of these offerings, and preserve them and archive them. And in my group, which is Global Peace Farms, after George Perry Floyd—we’ve started planting all around the country. I'll be going to Jamaica and then Liberia, with the same type of things that we're doing at the Square. Creating peace farms, right? When people don't have peace with what they eat, or peace with their surroundings, it’s about fostering communities, like what you see at the Square. 

I refuse to let it go. The key is we all need to refuse to let the world just go into despair and death. We can't wait for the next generation. We are that generation. We cannot wait for anyone else.