Saturday Marks 90 Years Since 67 Picketers Were Shot Here
Near the same intersection where you find young professionals living today in upscale lofts that used to be warehouses, a violent gun battle from the Great Depression era is approaching its 90th anniversary.
On July 20th, 1934, during a tense, drawn-out truckers’ strike, police shot 67 picketers–two of them fatally–in what’s come to be known as Bloody Friday. The horrifying incident also became a turning point for the labor movement, not only in Minneapolis but nationally.
Photo credit: MN Historical Society
We’ve written about it here, with newspaper clippings and newsreel footage, in our Historic North Loop section.
This Saturday afternoon at 4:00, a group dedicated to honoring those picketers, the Remember 1934 Collective, will lay a wreath at the intersection. Some descendants of those picketers will be on hand.
With the dramatic transformation the North Loop has gone through over the past couple of decades, the group hopes this key moment in history is not forgotten.
“The North Loop has become a real destination for restaurants and a high quality of life now, but history really grounds things,” said Keith Christensen, a member of Remember 1934. “It’s valuable for everyone there, especially the new folks to know that they’re standing on ground that was contested.”
The group posted a plaque at the intersection in 2015, on the old Sherwin Williams building.
“It was a hard-fought battle,” Christensen said. “People got killed and others suffered, but they had solidarity. They didn’t give up until they won their right to organize.”
Christensen is one of the organizers of an art exhibition, 1934 and Now, currently at the Minneapolis Central Library.
Several other events are planned to commemorate the 90th anniversary, including a picnic and a bicycle tour of 1934 strike sites.
By Mike Binkley, North Loop volunteer