Yuen: Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is opening up about her childhood past amid domestic violence

Long before Peggy Flanagan became a children’s advocate, lawmaker and Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, she was a little girl who wondered if it was safe to return home after school.

You may not know this about Flanagan. I didn’t.

Sometimes she references this part of her past only in shorthand, like when she describes herself as a “survivor and child witness of domestic violence” without further detail.

But the 45-year-old has recently been opening the door a crack more.

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped by a Minneapolis advocacy center for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and human trafficking. Flanagan was there in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. She listened as the Cornerstone staff gave her a tour of the offices, including a call center for a modernized 24-7 crisis hotline known as Day One. Technological improvements to the call center were made possible by recent funding increases from the Legislature for crime-victim services.

Holding a written proclamation stacked with “whereas” clauses, Flanagan lightened the mood by remarking on her need for bifocals. A beat later, she recounted how families experiencing domestic abuse sometimes, perhaps because of housing or financial reasons, feel like they must endure the violence.

“My mom stayed because she wanted me to be able to get through college,” Flanagan said, her voice cracking with emotion. “My mom finally got safe. I am grateful for folks like you, who create conditions so that our family members can protect themselves.”

Starting at about age 10, Flanagan told me after the tour, she witnessed the abuse of her mother by her then-stepdad, both of whom have passed away.

She realized that violence in the home wasn’t normal when she finally left for college and sensed that other kids didn’t grow up that way. “Most people don’t call home to see if I should come home after school, or if I should go to my best friend Lauren’s house,” she said.

Flanagan has often connected with Minnesotans by sharing tales about her personal life, such as when she recounts what it was like to grow up with a single mom in St. Louis Park who relied on public assistance. And yet for many years, she said, she didn’t feel comfortable talking openly about her family’s history with domestic abuse.

That changed when she got a nudge from an unlikely source. Flanagan, as she tells it, was in Washington, D.C., in 2009 as part of her work with the progressive training group Wellstone Action. Then-Vice President Joe Biden was receiving an award from the Sheila Wellstone Institute for his advocacy of domestic violence victims. Before the official ceremony, Flanagan felt compelled to share with Biden about the abuse she observed as a child.

“I just start weeping, and the vice president stood up and gave me a hug. I literally cried into his chest,” she recalled. “And he said, ‘If you can tell the vice president that story, I bet you can tell other people that story.’ ”

And so she has, gradually.

The advocates at Cornerstone, including executive director Artika Roller, who has spent more than two decades helping abuse victims, heard Flanagan speak about it at a rally for action among advocates and survivors.

Roller said sometimes people form a profile in their heads about what a victim of domestic violence looks like, but in Flanagan, those misguided assumptions fall apart.

“For me, it gives hope that people can not only overcome traumatic situations, they can excel and thrive,” Roller said.

Many more stories will be written about Flanagan if Kamala Harris wins the presidency, bringing Gov. Tim Walz to Washington as her vice president. That would elevate Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Nation, to the highest office in Minnesota, making her the first Native American female governor anywhere in the United States. She’d also be the first female governor in our state’s history.

If we can zoom out for a bit, remember this during Domestic Violence Awareness Month: An untold amount of horror unfolds behind closed doors in people’s homes. We usually only hear about it when someone dies. Last year Violence Free Minnesota documented 40 intimate partner and domestic violence-related homicides. That’s the highest number the coalition has ever documented since it began tracking the deaths in 1989.

The violence within a family can spill out into the streets. Think of the three Burnsville first responders who lost their lives while responding to a domestic-abuse call and trying to save a woman and seven children from a gunman in the house.

“We need to talk about it,” said Flanagan, who is a mom to a sixth-grade daughter. “I am a cycle-breaker, and I am raising a cycle-breaker.”

I only had a few minutes to interview her after her tour of the crisis line’s call center. My request to have a longer sit-down with her would have to wait, I was told by her aide. But Flanagan said her desire to speak more about her past is a way to counteract an earlier inclination, to make herself as small as possible to keep herself safe. She wants young women, especially young Native women, to know that “we can take up space and that we are valuable.”

David Wellstone accompanied Flanagan on that 2009 trip to see Biden. His mom, Sheila Wellstone, was crucial to the passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which was signed into law 30 years ago this fall.

When Flanagan shares her story with others, “it gives permission,” Wellstone said. “There’s so much stigma around the issue, and there can be so much shame. When somebody as powerful as she is and all that she’s attained can talk about it, it gives a whole new level of hope and the ability for people to tell their story.”

What will make victims of domestic violence safer? Prevention efforts, more sustainable funding for providers, and additional shelter beds can help. But so can simply speaking up and saying, “Me, too.”

Flanagan said the last time she ran into Biden, he remembered their conversation from over a decade ago.

“Flanagan,” he told her, “I bet you’ve saved a lot of lives.”

Victims of general crime, domestic violence, sexual violence or human trafficking in Minnesota can get support by calling 1-866-385-2699, texting 612-399-9977 or chatting with an advocate at dayoneservices.org.