African American Studies Commons^™

Rondo Days, Kellian Clink

Library Services Publications

The Rondo Days Festival, inaugurated in 1983, is a reunion of the Black community of the Twin Cities. It memorializes and mourns a neighborhood gone, a neighborhood where residents “learned to fill the gaps in American history (Fairbanks 1999, 141), learned about the contributions and tribulations of their people. The celebration remembers when the creation of I-94 meant the destruction of a vibrant neighborhood, moving hundreds of families from a community of truly gracious homes to “substandard housing with bad wiring” (Baker 1994). Rondo Days celebrates a sense of community sustained in defiance of institutional racism and urban planning run …