Eric Ortiz / erictortiz@gmail.com
Wedge resident & volunteer LHENA board member

Grassroots democracy is not easy. The work is rooted in community and empowers people to take leadership into their own communities. It requires passion, commitment and courage. And sometimes, it can get messy. That's what happens when there are big problems to solve.

​MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — As the temperature began to rise this summer, so too did a violent combination of robberies and car thefts commonly known as “carjackings.”

MINNEAPOLIS—Young black men are finding hope and a bright future through the Man Up Club in Minneapolis.

As Korey Dean, the club’s founder, worked as a student advocate in a local Twin Cities high school, he discovered that African American boys faced the most challenges. They were disproportionately filling detention halls, disproportionately sent downtown with police escorts after an altercation, and disproportionately failing to graduate.

​MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Early Sunday morning, two women were shot near Plymouth and Penn Avenues.

Later that day, a young man was injured by gunfire on West Broadway in North Minneapolis.

Program founder Korey Dean, left, portrays "anger" as he playfully constrains his son Tytist Dean, 17, during a talk at The Man Up Club in north Minneapolis on Aug. 31, 2017. Courtney Perry for MPR News