Resources & Questions for contemplation about this story

Leaning across a dining area table in a North Minneapolis drug store is a tall, broad-shouldered man whose fiery, intense eyes blaze out from under his Kofi cap. His physique accounts for a small portion of his powerful presence, the ceremonial garb and air of wisdom do the rest. I feel as though I’m sitting at the table of an African chief. I wait while he eats some of his breakfast. Then Brother Shane Price looks up with his warm, penetrating smile and gives me his full attention.

Brother Shane Price

He begins, “One night in 1994, I had the strangest dream. In it, I was standing in the middle of a grocery store parking lot near West Broadway—the main thoroughfare that bisects North Minneapolis. I appeared to be addressing a crowd. My hands were holding a megaphone to my mouth and I was barking out some sort of chant or command over and over again, although the words weren’t exactly clear. For months afterward, I remembered and wondered about the dream. But I didn’t understand what it meant.

“Several months later, however, following the Second Annual West Broadway March for Peace and Justice, I was looking through some photographs taken at the event. Suddenly, I stopped and stood in stunned silence staring at one of the photos. In it, I was standing in the West Broadway parking lot speaking through a megaphone. It was exactly the same image I had seen in my dream. It just blew my mind. I knew then that dreams can carry valuable information.”

In some respects, Brother Shane has always been a dreamer. He grew up in Minneapolis amidst the struggles and high hopes of the civil rights movement. His mother was a leader in the movement, and there were many meetings of black activists at his home. He listened to the powerful rhetoric of the time and developed an affinity for the spoken word. He fashioned himself as an orator or a radio broadcaster. But the assassinations of civil rights leaders in the ’60s shattered his world. In the early ’70s, he began to abuse drugs and alcohol. Shane’s life went on that way for more than a decade.

Then one day in 1986, a seemingly routine event transformed Shane’s life. He recalls it this way:

“I had taken my daughter to a carnival at the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center where a Latino evangelist was speaking. He asked if anybody in the community wanted prayer to be delivered from drugs and alcohol. I raised my hand out of spite. I didn’t think he should make those claims. Inside I was saying, ‘If you got it, I want it. If not, get out of here.’ He prayed for me. The next day, the desire for drugs and alcohol completely left my taste buds. I no longer had any urge or desire to use. I became completely clean of drugs right then, and I’ve never gone back.

“Soon after that, I decided to share what he gave me by helping others. I kicked in the roots of my civil rights activism, became trained as a chemical dependency counselor, and created a social change organization based on faith and spirituality rather than bureaucracy.”

In 1994, the year Shane had his mysterious dream, white men coming in from the suburbs and cruising the avenue looking for girls and gay guys, had given a North Minneapolis block the dubious distinction of being called “Hookers’ Row.” The johns would drive right past neighborhood children standing on the corner waiting for the school buses. Shane lived on that block, and his daughter was one of the kids watching the prostitution traffic. His doorstep became a refuge for students when the hookers and cruisers came by. The prostitutes and their johns were taking away the neighborhood.

Shane decided to take action. As a member of the Hawthorne Area Community Council, he put together a citywide coalition of several antiprostitution groups, social service organizations, and agencies. They called themselves the Unity Action Community Team. The team held a news conference to announce plans for a series of concerted actions designed to rid the neighborhood streets of the johns and their prostitutes. That led to a spontaneous community rally. He remembers it well:

“We took over eight city blocks. We knocked on doors, got on a local radio station, sent out flyers, and got church members to come and help. At night, we pitched a tent on a corner and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. We told jokes and got to know each other. We sent foot soldiers around to check things out. We used chants and signs to empower the kids.

Our focus was on the johns. We videotaped their license plates. Later, we sent out ‘Dear john’ letters, informing them that they had been seen in the area. We got results. Wives of the johns called asking why we wrote that letter. That started a dialogue. Our goal was to send a message—this area was not open for that kind of traffic. This was to be a safe area for children to stand on their corners. There was a change right away. We took back our streets. The children could wait on the corner again. But we didn’t stop there.”

Even as the prostitution was being cleared away, West Broadway was still known as the drug center in the neighborhood. Shane and his cohorts decided to take back that street and their community “corner by corner,” using the energy of the Hookers’ Row success. In the aftermath of one of the most violent days in Minneapolis’ history, when a four-year-old child was killed, they formed the “Gang of Good People” and planned the first West Broadway March for Peace and Social Justice. The activists went to the city for a marching permit, but public officials balked at the idea of shutting down a vital street like West Broadway. A huge political fight ensued as supporters wrote letters to city council members, making their case. The night before the event, they got the go-ahead to march.

With limited financial resources and only meager community donations, about five hundred participants trudged down the center of West Broadway, finishing the march at an area elementary school. Shane was there, leading the marchers. He recalls being “excited to have so many people in one place saying they were tired of the drug traffic and willing to stand up and say that peace was important enough to get up and march about.”

The West Broadway March has become an annual event that begins and ends with neighborhood rallies. It has expanded in sponsorship, activities, and cross-cultural participation to include a job fair, voter registration, children’s activities, forums on peacemaking and racism, recruitment of adoptive parents, information for people seeking a home or moving from welfare to work, and a food drive. It has led to the formation of the West Broadway Peace and Social Justice Foundation that raises money for community antiviolence projects and has played a role in the building of a new neighborhood school.

Shane has been a key organizer and speaker for each march. It was at one of them that he was first introduced with “Brother” in front of his name, and he has kept it ever since. At the rally preceding the ’96 march, he stood on a makeshift stage near a West Broadway grocery store, posed like he had been in the dream, holding a hand mike and revving up the crowd—many of whom are wearing T-shirts that said, “Get Your Kuji On” (Kuji means self-determination).

“How many are here looking for peace?” he yelled. Hands went up throughout the crowd.

“How many are here looking for social justice?” same response.

At a concluding rally in a packed school auditorium after the march, Shane was presented with a special award for his role in organizing the event.

Gradually, the lines of marching feet on West Broadway have turned into circles of peace.

Shane, who administers a community social service agency, saw the limitations of the human services system. He decided to train with Native American circle leaders in the Yukon (Northwest Canada) to bring the restorative justice circle process to his community. Now, he facilitates circle discussion groups for families in trouble, providing transportation and child-care so they can come to the sessions. With people seated in a semicircle around him, he guides a frank and often emotional dialogue designed to resolve conflict and heal inner pain.

“We train circle groups in the neighborhoods where families need them so we can create a safe place to speak the truth. The circle is a place where they can minister to and serve their fellow man.

It’s a way to get with our humanity. It’s a form of tough love.

“In the circle process, the perpetrator has to face the victim and community instead of a judge or a prosecutor. That’s a different way to be. We’re creating a new language that’s changing people’s lives. Community offenders are becoming good neighbors. The circle process is a beautiful way to build bridges.”

The first time I participated in a circle was at a neighborhood meeting in North Minneapolis. Shane sat down at a small table containing a bowl, a jar of sweet grass, and an eagle feather. He called people together with a rhythm on a tall bongo drum. He then told the group, “The drum is a powerful tool of communication. We, as a people, have become accustomed to email, pagers, and cell phones, but the drum is the oldest means of communication. It has a way of calling people together. It is a way for us to look back to the history of humanity and help us in our relationships. The sweet grass is from the Native American culture and shows respect for the environment.”

Shane passed around the feather during introductions. Each person held it as they told their name and shared a story about themselves. Eventually, difficult and unexpected feelings surfaced. A slender Jewish woman cradled a new baby and told how religious healing saved the child at birth. A mentally ill woman, abused by institutions, tearfully discussed the importance of “love” in the healing process, moving others to cry along with her. After everyone spoke, Shane ended with a reading from a book of meditations:

“. . . a caring touch, a simple smile, may be all it takes to heal. . . In community, there is healing É”

On another occasion, Brother Shane demonstrated the circle process to a class of university students who were studying compassionate rebel stories. After setting out the usual items, he told the students that everything visible (he used a chair as an example) began in the invisible—as an idea in somebody’s mind. He explained that the circle would take them to “invisible places where all the real work takes place, where the invisible begins to become visible.”

Shane had requested ahead of time that the students each bring some items of special meaning with them to the circle. As they introduced themselves, they presented what they had brought and put it into a pile on a carpet next to Shane’s ceremonial display. Some laid down chains given to them by family or friends. The classroom teacher set out his wedding ring. A school athlete left a medal he had won in sports. An English major took out a newspaper clipping about the murder of her mother. A classmate next to her presented a book of her own poems. She read one that had obviously been written during a time of despair. With each item, there was a story—of relationships, of teamwork, of joy or agony. These had been relatively quiet, reserved students up to now, but suddenly they were pouring out their souls, making what had been invisible into the visible. “Now,” Shane told them, “I have come to know all of you better, and we can connect. Our stories are everything we are.”

Shane carries his message from deep within. “We [in society] emphasize the body and the mind, but not the spirit,” he says. “That can lead us to scary places. The spirit is where compassion takes place. The true worth of a man is the quality of his soul.” He calls spirituality “a part of my work, my own personal deliverance. It gives me the ability to perceive a person beyond what he or she appears to be. I can look at a drug addict and see a sane and sober person. Then I can speak to the invisible person there and call him or her to a higher place. I will continue to push people to a higher spiritual level.

“Recently, we started working with a Puerto Rican family, including a fourteen year-old girl who was molested by her mom’s brother. She’s been meeting with us in circles for the last eight weeks. When I pass down her street and go by her house on my way home, she has a sense of who I am and what my values are. One time when I rode by, she and her girl-friend were sitting on the porch smoking cigarettes. Out my window, I could see her lips move, ‘Here comes Brother Shane.’ Then she put her cigarette out. That’s the kind of accountability we expect and traditional social services can’t provide.”

In North Minneapolis, the words, “Here comes Brother Shane” have become a clarion call to organize and empower, as well as a mantra for peace, justice, and compassion. These words are recognition of the impact one man has had on a struggling neighborhood. They are evidence of how far Shane has come in turning his dreams into reality and making the invisible visible.

Questions for Contemplation:

1. Who has been a positive role model or mentor for you?

2. Have you ever had a strange dream that you didn’t understand but that later manifested itself as a reality? What happened? What did you conclude?

3. Has your neighborhood ever had a march or rally promoting a particular cause? Did you participate? Is there a particular issue you think your neighborhood should rally about?

4. Restorative Justice is a fairly new concept in the United States. Would you like to see it become more prevalent in your community, school, or place of work? What are you willing to do to make it happen?

5. What are some things you have done to reach out to people?

Resources for Reflection and Action:

The Millionth Circle: How to change ourselves and the world, by Jean Shinoda Bolen (Berkeley, CA: Conari Press, 1999). Gives ideas for starting and sustaining circles, such as centering the circle; supportive rituals; how to nurture safety, equality, and respect for privacy; and ways to deal with conflict.

The FACTS Toolkit: Event planning for your family and community town supper (Wisconsin Clearinghouse for Prevention Resources, PO Box 1468 Madison, WI 53701). Phone: 800-248-9944. Website: www.wiclearinghouse.com. A tool for facilitating youth, family, and community development. Offers a structure so a community can mobilize its resources to create actions related to a community concern.

Stories of Transformative Justice, by Ruth Morris. (Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars’ Press, Inc., 2000). A collection of stories from around the world on restorative justice, forgiveness, prison reform, and transformative justice at work.

About Juvenile Violence and Its Prevention (Bureau for At-Risk Youth, 135 Dupont Street, PO Box 760, Plainview, NY 11803). Phone: 800-99-YOUTH. Email: info@at-risk.com. Website: www.at-risk.com. Addresses the causes of violent behavior, danger signs parents should look for in children, and violence prevention techniques.

Citizen Circles. Website: www.renaissancealliance.org. Citizen Circles are open, emotionally safe forums in which people join together to not only expand their political awareness but to also take action to help make manifest the most compassionate society.

Peace Room. Website: www.Peaceroom.org. A model of a new social tool for positive evolution.

International Conference on Penal Abolition, 157 Carlton St., Suite 202, Toronto, Ontario, M5A 2K3, Canada. Challenges current approaches to criminal justice and works to transform the root causes of crime, bring power to communities, and heal victims and offenders. Conferences are held every two years. Phone: 416-972-9992. Website: www.interlog.com/~ritten/icopa.html.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). Website: www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org. Provides grants and funding information, programs, resources, a calendar of events, statistics, and access to publications dealing with delinquency prevention, gangs, violence and victimization, and substance abuse.

Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) Website: www.colorado.edu/cspv/. Uses a multidisciplinary approach to violence and works to build connections between the research community, practitioners, and policy makers.