In the 1950s, planned construction of Interstate Highway 94 (I-94) threatened to fracture four Twin Cities neighborhoods: Rondo, Prospect Park, Merriam Park, and Seward. Although each community responded differently and achieved different results, all were models of persistence and resistance.

Minneapolis real estate developers began writing racial covenants—race-based property ownership restrictions—into property deeds in 1910. They were banned by the Minnesota state legislature in 1953, but their use in the early twentieth century laid the foundation for contemporary racial disparities in Minnesota.

Employing the racial prejudices and fantasies of elite male clients once used against her, Ida Dorsey established herself as one of the Twin Cities’ most notorious madams, running multiple brothels between the 1880s and the 1910s. As a woman of color in an industry dominated by white women, she demonstrated herself an adept entrepreneur and real estate owner when most women had neither income nor property.