In the Shadow of Fear, a Moment of Peace

An unexpected encounter by the federal building DHS has been using near Minneapolis.

IN MINNEAPOLIS LAST MONTH for The Bulwark’s live shows in the city, a colleague and I went to scope out the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. We wanted to get familiar with the area before Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, and Jonathan V. Last would arrive the next day. Miles from downtown, the Whipple Building is a blocky Brutalist structure surrounded by concrete barriers and fences; it’s where federal agents have set out from on their daily raids, and where many of the thousands of immigrants apprehended in the state this year have been detained. Naturally, it’s also where protesters have been gathering daily.

It didn’t take long before we saw both feds and protesters. Shortly after we arrived at the Whipple Building, we watched masked agents arrive in SUVs with darkened windows. And we met members of Haven Watch, a grassroots organization formed in January to help community members affected by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

But then came an unexpected detour. DeYanna Ostroushko, an organizer who was showing us around, suggested that we make another stop—a place where she needed to go to drop off respirators for people who had been targeted by immigration agents. She told us to tag along to see one of the underreported stories from a state besieged by DHS: a Native American prayer camp that had recently been set up a mile or so away from the Whipple Building.

DeYanna drove us along a highway toward a beautiful wall of rock, then hopped her car onto the sidewalk and kept driving toward the nearby forest. After about three minutes, we pulled alongside a few other parked cars.

On foot, we headed off into the trees, trudging along a path made of woodchips through the snowy mud, ducking branches and avoiding burrows of unknown animals. We got to a clearing with three white tepees, smoke billowing out of the top of one. Toward the back, we saw a handful of black yurts. At the far corner was a makeshift kitchen with shelves of rations, camp stoves, and the man who helped build this prayer camp. John Martin—spirit name Kakwa Gaa Bimosed (Walking With Bears)—was tall, maybe 6 foot 4, and had a powerful presence. DeYanna introduced us and gave him the gas masks and respirators. We talked for a little bit about what they need, and how to receive donations (or “gifts” as Martin calls them) for the prayer camp.

There was something unnerving about this prayer camp practically in the shadow of the Whipple Building. Perhaps it was the history of the Whipple Building having been built on the site of a concentration camp where Native Americans were held in 1862, or its having been named for an Episcopalian priest credited with convincing President Lincoln to pardon many Dakota prisoners, or the fact that the building is now a detention center for immigrants. There are layers of pain on that land.

After finishing the interview, Martin thanked us for sharing his community’s message. We then stood for a moment by the prayer fire (which is not allowed to be filmed or photographed). Head bowed, I thought about both the DHS agents causing mayhem in the streets today and the chaos in the area 160 years earlier. How slow we are to learn the lesson of appreciating one another’s cultures. And how quick we are to turn to violence.

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Rupert Manderstam is a videographer and video editor at The Bulwark.