Kimberly Brown performs at the annual Black History Month Showcase in Brooklyn Park on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. Mshale Staff Photo by Jasmine Webbber
On Friday, Feb. 21, 2025 Brooklyn Park held its annual Black History Month Showcase at the Community Activity Center. Mshale photojournalist Jasmine Webber compiled this photo essay from the celebration.
Students from Excell Academy show their dance moves at the Brooklyn Park Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Jerome Richardson, executive director of Global Teen Activists was the keynote speaker. “There is continuously a threat to our democracy and our autonomy as human beings. January 2025, just this year, major policy change by the new administration was an executive order that took away the prohibited of discrimination by federal contractors and affirmative action programs which undoes decades of hard-earned blood seat and tears that were put into affirming Black individuals and minorities that don’t have the same opportunities, this is not just a political shift but an attack on our progress, equity and justice.” As Richardson concluded his address, it was announced that President Trump had fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, only the second African American to hold the chairman’s job. Brown, a four-star general, was replaced by a retired three-star white general.The drums were loud and they thundered in the Brooklyn Park community center as Lions Drum and Dance brought their signature beats and music during the city’s Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Entrepreneur and motivational speaker Rasheda Jenkins speaks at Brooklyn Park’s Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Paintings by local artists showcasing Black culture on a table at the Brooklyn Park Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Mayor Hollies Winston who started his third year in office last month spoke of the upcoming 200 acres BioTech Innovation District that the city is planning to develop in the area around highways 169 and 610. It is expected to break ground in 2026 and create an estimated 10,000 jobs. Brooklyn Park was given the authority last year by the Minnesota Legislature to issue bonds. The highways 169 and 610 is where the cities of Brooklyn Park, Champlin and Maple Grove intersect and the mayor said of the development: “There are other cities, Maple Grove and Champlin, that are trying to tell us how we should develop as a city, we didn’t tell them how to develop as a city, but suddenly when we start saying as a community we want to create certain opportunities for ourselves, and something nice for ourselves people start saying this is how you should do it.”The audience records a performance with their cellphones during the Brooklyn Park Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.Hip-Hop artist Juice Lord was one of the attractions at the Brooklyn Park Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. Ahead of his appearance on Friday, he posted on social media that the last physical copies of his latest album “8th Inning: Luv VS Passion” were still available. Regarding the album, he said: “The 8th inning represents my youth playing baseball but also represents a full-circle moment. The moment is when I hit the 8th year of pursuing music, the 8th year being out of high school, and the celebration of still having the love and passion for it while going through many emotions of losing people I loved along the way that are alive and gone.” The artist who grew up in St. Paul, added: “As well as paying homage to a rec center named Scheffer that is now called “Frogtown” by wearing a jersey that highlights that era of my life and love for baseball. This project led me to tour, sold out shows, Minnesota music library and the front of star tribune.”Aru Sasikumar, director of social justice at the African Career, Education, & Resource Inc. (ACER) speaks to a visitor (off camera) to their table at the Brooklyn Park Black History Month Showcase on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025. ACER, which was born in Brooklyn Park and operates in most of the northwest suburbs, recently completed its move to Brooklyn Center after taking ownership of the $5 million Shingle Creek Center that now serves as its new headquarters.Singer and songwriter Kimberly Brown told the audience that work songs during slavery sometimes contained coded information “such as the time or location of the next secret meeting and contained information on how to flee that only slaves could understand.” You can watch a video clip of one of those songs at the top of this story.
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