Maybe, at least for this year, it might be time to rename National Night Out and Night to Unite. Maybe something like National Reconnect with your Community Night.
Because in communities across Minnesota and in hundreds of Twin Cities neighborhoods, folks repeatedly expressed an eagerness to reconnect — with neighbors, with police and with a feeling of community.
After two years of a global pandemic, continuing tensions over crime and policing, and a deepening political divide, residents returned to Night Out block parties and barbecues with a palpable yearning to once again feel normal. And safe.
In Minneapolis' Camden neighborhood at 44th and Humboldt avenues in north Minneapolis, entrepreneur Houston White hosted his sixth National Night Out block party. This year, he said, it was especially important to "get a sense of community back."
"There's been a lot of instances of violence, so there has been a mutual anxiety," White said. "Just to have that joy, normalizing having fun together again, seeing the kids hopscotch, hearing music in the background and smell of barbecue, that's the whole thing."
Mayor Jacob Frey used the gathering to introduce Cedric Alexander, his choice to become community safety commissioner.
"This is his first National Night Out. This is one of his first days as a Minneapolis resident, in Minnesota. He's from Florida. But he is one of us," Frey said. "Welcome him, love on him. We've got to support him, because this is going to be a big, big job — you know, safety, accountability, reform, transformation, all that."
At the party in Loring Park, Interim Minneapolis Police Chief Amelia Huffman said the block parties are a way for residents and police to rebuild trust.