"Is this your first time in?" Yusuf asked tourists. "Please sign in using the iPad."
Yusuf, whose family lives nearby, said she worries what will happen when the trial is over and the city comes for the square. Today, she said, it's a place for healing, for mourning, for community. What will happen if the city tries to remove these symbols?
Wrapped in blankets and chains, high school English teacher Kaia Hirt sat in a folding chair, a cold wind whipping the ribbons and flags attached to the fence to which she's locked herself.
The fortified government complex loomed over her shoulder. Inside, a jury is hearing the murder case against Chauvin.
“This isn’t about me at all," Hirt said. "These fences that the city erected are representative of their inability to build a relationship with the community. If I have to sit out here with these silly chains on to get you to listen to me, I will."
For many Black protesters and police-reform advocates, the razor wire, armored vehicles and camouflaged soldiers with rifles are the ultimate expression of the yawning chasm between the government and the people it is supposed to represent.
That's not new to Black community leaders in Minneapolis, who say poor education, sparse health care and high unemployment are products of institutional racism. They hope the trial and the city's $27 million payment to Floyd's family will provide the necessary push to dismantle those systems.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he welcomes the urgency of Black activists, which he said has spurred the city to reform policy at every level, including police officers' use of force and new programs to increase Black property ownership and loan money to Black-owned businesses affected by the riots.
"It's impossible to course-correct 400 years of systemic oppression in a single policy," he said. "No one of them has any snappy slogan or hashtag. And that kind of process is the point: This work is hard and it needs to be done every day."
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