minneapolis Archives - SHOPPE BLACK

Published on April 23, 2022April 23, 2022

4 mins read

First Black Owned Bank in Minneapolis Launching Next Week

When the new Minneapolis branch of First Independence Bank holds its grand opening on Tuesday, it will be the culmination of an effort that is more than a year in the making.

The Detroit-based bank is also now the first Black-owned bank in the Twin Cities.

Kenneth Kelly, Chairman and CEO of First Independence, says his company’s expansion is happening with the help of five major financial institutions — Bank of America, Bremer Bank, Huntington Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

“This is unprecedented what we have seen,” Kelly said. “We’ve got five major banks basically saying, ‘we want to invite a competitor into the market.’”

Kelly says it started with a conversation with other bank executives in the fall of 2020, just months after the police killing of George Floyd.

Since then, First Independence received FDIC approval to expand into the Twin Cities and open a branch at a former Wells Fargo location on University Avenue in Minneapolis.

The bank has hired local employees including Minneapolis native, Damon Jenkins, Senior VP and Market Region President.

“We’re not coming in trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re not coming in with a silver bullet approach. It’s really saying ‘how do we connect with the community?’” Jenkins said.

Calls for a Black-owned bank in the Twin Cities have grown louder following several high profile incidents of alleged discrimination.

“Those things are reality in America, so we’re not going to shy away from that, but what I will tell you… one of the things that we will try to bring to the table is the value of trust.” Kelly said. “When you’re trusting of someone, you don’t have to immediately go to suspicion.”

Jenkins, a former employee of Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, says recent incidents of alleged racial profiling motivate him to keep working to improve access to banking for everyone.

“It just reminds me that this equity journey is just that — it’s a journey and not a destination,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got a long way to go. It just reminds us we still have a lot of work to do.”

Jenkins and Kelly say First Independence Bank will focus on closing significant racial disparities in home ownership in Minnesota.

The bank is also partnering with local businesses and nonprofits to offer free financial literacy training and credit restoration services.

“That’s what makes this such a historic thing because it’s not the flavor the day” Jenkins said. “If it’s an opportunity to think different, let’s look at that. If it’s an opportunity to bank different, let’s look at that because that’s the true way we’re going to give people access and power their potential so they can tap into this journey of generational wealth as well.”

Grand opening ceremonies at First Independence Bank on University Avenue in Minneapolis will begin at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

A second branch at Lake Street and Hiawatha Avenue in Minneapolis is expected to open in June.

Source: ABC 5

Published on September 9, 2021

2 mins read

Black Owned Bank From Detroit to open a location in Minneapolis

First Independence is a Detroit-based, Black owned bank and one of only 18 Black owned full-service banks in the U.S. In late August, it filed an application with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to open a branch in Minneapolis.

The “full service” bank is expected to open a branch in early November. Another location may open by the middle of 2022, First Independence Bank chairman and CEO Kenneth Kelly said at a news conference.

“Banks are beacons of hope in their communities, and we intend to be that for the people of Minneapolis, St. Paul and the rest of the Twin Cities, particularly those who are unbanked or underbanked throughout the region,” Kelly said.

Related: Black Owned Banks Still Operating in 2021

Its arrival is supported by five banks in the Twin Cities — Bank of America, Bremer Bank, Huntington Bank, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, who will assist with capital, research, marketing and other services.

The incoming university location was formerly a Wells Fargo bank. In March 2020, Wells Fargo made a $50 million investment in 13 Black-Owned Banks, including First Independence. Bank of America also invested in September 2020, taking equity stakes of about 5% in First Independence Bank.

The bank hopes to lessen racial disparities with a home loan program intended to reduce the gaps between Black and white homeowners and a loan program to help establish a credit score or repair personal credit, Kelly said. As a Community Development Financial Institution, the bank will have more favorable lending rates to individuals in low-income areas.

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Published on June 7, 2020June 7, 2020

7 mins read

Minneapolis City Council Announces Plan To Disband The Police Department

On Sunday afternoon, a veto-proof majority of Minneapolis City Council members will announce their commitment to disbanding the city’s embattled police department, which has endured relentless criticism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, on May 25.

“We’re here because we hear you. We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police. We are here because here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety is not keeping our communities safe,” Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender said Sunday. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed. Period.”

The City Council’s decision follows those of several other high-profile partners, including Minneapolis Public Schools, and the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis Parks and Recreation, to sever longstanding ties with the MPD.

The announcement today also arrives after several members of the Council have expressed a complete loss of confidence in the Minneapolis Police Department.

“We are going to dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,” tweeted Council Member Jeremiah Ellison on June 4, pledging to “dramatically rethink” the city’s approach to emergency response. In a TIME op-ed published the next day, Council Member Steve Fletcher cited the MPD’s lengthy track record of misconduct and “decades-long history of violence and discrimination”—all of which are subjects of an ongoing Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigation—as compelling justifications for the department’s disbandment. “We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon or pulling out handcuffs,” Fletcher wrote.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said last night that he opposed disbanding the police department at a protest organized and led by Black Visions Collective against police violence in the city. That answer earned him a thundering chorus of boos and chants of “Shame!” and “Go home, Jacob, go home!” The New York Times called the scene a “humiliation on a scale almost unimaginable outside of cinema or nightmare.”

“The last Democratic mayor, Betsy Hodges, handled the murder of Jamar [Clark] poorly. We told her she was going to lose her job. And she did,” Miski Noor, a Black Visions Collective organizer, said on Frey’s refusal to disband the Minneapolis Police Department.

Since taking office in January 2018, Frey has overseen reforms to the MPD’s body camera policy that impose harsher discipline on officers who fail to comply, and barred officers from participating in so-called “Bulletproof Warrior” training, which encourages law enforcement to use deadly force if they feel their lives are in jeopardy. The officer who shot and killed Philando Castile during a 2016 traffic stop had attended a seminar two years earlier.

More recently, however, Frey has faced criticism from community groups for supporting increases to the MPD’s budget, and for the city’s failure to invest significantly in community-based public safety programs during his tenure.

For years, activists have argued that MPD has failed to actually keep the city safe, and City Councilmembers echoed that sentiment today during their announcement. MPD’s record for solving serious crimes in the city is consistently low. For example, in 2019, Minneapolis police only cleared 56 percent of cases in which a person was killed. For rapes, the police department’s solve rate is abysmally low. In 2018, their clearance rate for rape was just 22 percent. In other words, four out of every five rapes go unsolved in Minneapolis. Further casting doubt on the department’s commitment to solving sexual assaults, MPD announced last year the discovery of 1,700 untested rape kits spanning 30 years, which officials said had been misplaced.

The Council’s move is consistent with rapidly-shifting public opinion regarding the urgency of overhauling the American model of law enforcement. Since Floyd’s killing and the protests that ensued, officials in Los Angeles and New York City have called for making deep cuts to swollen police budgets and reallocating those funds for education, affordable housing, and other social services. Law enforcement officers are not equipped to be experts in responding to mental health crises, often leading to tragic results—nationally, about half of police killings involve someone living with mental illness or disability.

As a result, public health experts have long advocated for dispatching medical professionals and/or social workers, not armed police, to respond to calls related to substance use and mental health. Polling from Data for Progress indicates that more than two-thirds of voters—68 percent—support the creation of such programs, versions of which are already in place in other cities such as, Eugene, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Denver, Colorado.

“Our commitment is to do what is necessary to keep every single member of our community safe and to tell the truth that the Minneapolis Police are not doing that,” Bender said Sunday. “Our commitment is to end our city’s toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe.”

Source: The Appeal