Mark Labberton: It’s a great joy to me today to welcome Jeanelle Austin as our guest on Conversing. Jeanelle has been with us before on a couple of occasions, and on this occasion, we have the opportunity of welcoming her not just as the leader of George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, the town and the neighbourhood where she was raised, as a person who had been a student at Fuller Seminary and a graduate with two degrees, as a person whose activism and leadership has been exercised in a variety of different settings, but especially in recent years in Minneapolis itself. This time, we’re having a conversation with her about the fact that she has run for political office in the State Senate of Minnesota, District 62.
Jeanelle is a person who is prepared to take the world and people in the world with great seriousness and to jump into places and contexts where that reality is so real that action on the part of others needs to occur. That’s what motivates and guides her campaign. That’s what we’re going to learn today about what it means to be a grassroots candidate in a local context running for state office for the very first time.
Jeanelle Austin, welcome to Conversing. It is a particularly great joy again to have you back.
Jeanelle Austin: It is great to be back, Mark.
Mark Labberton: You know that I’m a person who holds you in great esteem, and there’s many reasons for that, which I’ve expressed in other podcasts. But today, I want to say it’s because of your courage and decision to decide to run for office in the state of Minnesota. You were running for the Minnesota State Senate in District 62. And it’s the whole arc of your experience. You come to it as the leader of George Floyd Square and Memorial, and you have had deep investment in the community in Minnesota that you’ve been a part of for decades of your life, intensively in the last many years, and now specifically through running for political office.
I just think that story is one that I’m eager to hear about and to understand more fully and to share with other people. So Jeanelle, first of all, what awoke for you this curiosity, interest, and ultimately decision to run for office in Minnesota?
Jeanelle Austin: Last summer, I was on a pilgrimage in Palestine. I went with a Black religious scholars delegation. And on that trip, we had visited many people in the West Bank of Palestinian descent who told us their stories, told us their stories of oppression, helped us understand the context of the injustices that they were facing.
One of the people that we spoke to was a father whose son was imprisoned for allegedly throwing rocks, which is in Palestine a sign of protest. And his son—fifteen years old at the time. And the entire story and the injustices that surrounded it, that surrounded that story, really hit me in a very deep way, because this particular family was a Palestinian-American family who was based in Florida, vacationing in Palestine for a holiday to visit family. And when this incident took place of his son being imprisoned, the U.S. government virtually did nothing. And as a family, their hands were tied and they were trying to figure out, what do we do and how do we get our son out of prison under the harsh circumstances?
That trip, when we came to the end of the two weeks, I was actually the last person to leave out of Jordan. And so I had an entire day by myself and I was laying in my hotel bed. And I remember telling myself I would run for office if it meant that I could save somebody’s life.
At that time, or prior to that time, running for office was something that I had tossed around because community members had asked me to, but ultimately always decided no, because I realized that I wasn’t running for office because I actually wanted the job. The idea of running for office was always because I thought I could do a better job than the person sitting in that seat. And my dearest friends advised me to not run against someone, but to run for something.
Mark Labberton: Yes.
Jeanelle Austin: And this was the first moment where I felt like I would be running for something, and something that really mattered. And at the time, our current senator was running for mayor. And I thought, well, if he becomes mayor, then his seat is going to open up. So let me consider this idea of running for Minnesota State Senate.
Mark Labberton: Right.
Jeanelle Austin: And I came home and I asked my family and they were like, absolutely, we’re down for it. And I then proceeded to ask some of my community members and co-labourers in the movement. And they all said, yes, absolutely. Even the ones who were anti-government. And that was the thing that really kind of pushed me towards the decision, because if the people who were anti-government were saying, yes, we want you to run, with the logic that they believed the government was a sinking ship anyways—and they said, well, at least we’re going to have someone at the helm who’s going to order who gets on the lifeboats first. And I think that kind of faith and trust and relationship made me confident in the idea that running would be a good thing and a positive thing.
Mark Labberton: So they didn’t trust that the system was even a just or good thing, but they thought, well, even in a broken system that’s unjust and unhelpful, let’s at least have a helpful person who’s going to pursue justice and bring something of value. Is that sort of the summary?
Jeanelle Austin: Yeah, yeah. That’s correct.
Mark Labberton: Amazing. That is fascinating.
Jeanelle Austin: The next phase then was actually building a campaign. So I consulted several people that I knew who were in politics. And one person advised for me to think about, what would I do if I lost? And this was one of the early-on conversations I had in September.
Mark Labberton: Right.
Jeanelle Austin: And what they said was that oftentimes people run for office and they build power, but they don’t think about what they’re going to do with that power in the event that they lose. And so I was challenged early on to not just think about winning the race, but think about what would I do if I lost the race. So I built a campaign that I told everyone who I invited into this journey that I was running a win-win campaign, and that whatever the outcome, our goal would be to organize and to help our community regardless.
And so I set out to become senator, because I realized that there were things within the position that would give me the authority to help save lives or, in another way of phrasing it, we framed it for our campaign, is to help let people live. And at the same time, I also understood that my power did not come from the seat. My power came from my community, my family, my cultural identity. And so my reasons for running were not to obtain power that I had. My reasons for running were not to obtain a job, a job I have. My reasons for running were purely on the need for the authority in particular areas to make life better for other people. Now, we can continue to make life better for other people, but it’s going to have to be through different avenues when you’re not in that seat of power in particular.
Mark Labberton: Right. So to fast-forward for just a minute—I want you to keep telling the story. Eventually what happens is that you don’t win, which is where we are now. And I want to hear about that whole transition. But just to give listeners an opportunity to understand that you’re doing all this with what I would describe as a pretty extraordinary degree of personal freedom, because you’re clear about what you already held as power and influence and you’re clear about what the needs are that you’re really trying to respond to. And those things remain the same with or without the office per se.
Jeanelle Austin: Correct.
Mark Labberton: Is that right?
Jeanelle Austin: And I think that this concept of personal freedom was a key theme throughout my journey, because I upset a lot of people by throwing my hat in for a race against a beloved incumbent.
Mark Labberton: Yes.
Jeanelle Austin: Even people who are my friends.
Mark Labberton: Yes. Omar Fateh is the existing senator.
Jeanelle Austin: And even my friends who are in politics, they were upset—or not necessarily upset, but they were frustrated, or they were just really honest with me to say, Jeanelle, I can’t endorse you because I’ve been in relationship with Omar for a long time and he helped me get into politics. And so I have to endorse him. And so I think you’re both great, but just understand that this is what’s happening. And I still want you to run. I want to encourage you to run.
And so I had multiple conversations like that, but there were several people who I did not know who were extremely upset with the idea of me running. I was messing up the game plan for—I guess they have a kind of list of who gets to be next in which seats.
Mark Labberton: Right, right.
Jeanelle Austin: And I was not on that list at all.
Mark Labberton: You were jumping—trying to jump the line, apparently.
Jeanelle Austin: Apparently, but that’s something that I do. I mean, I’ve always done that. You learn how to do that when you’re one of seven children. You can’t always wait in line. You might not get fed.
So I made a lot of people frustrated. And I’ll never forget, I showed up to a campaign party for another friend who was running for school board. And someone at that party—I walked up to the circle of people having a conversation, and as I walk up, they had said, anyone who runs against a progressive incumbent should be punished. And I just sat there. I was like, oh, wow. So me? I should be punished?
And I did not say that to him at the time. I just stayed quiet and observant. But I did give that feedback to someone who was on the same committee that worked with, who was actually their superior. And I said, you know, this happened. I just want you to know that I observed this. And I also want you to know that that’s not okay. Because we’re out here in subzero temperatures. Mind you, Operation Metro Surge was also taking place during this time.
Mark Labberton: Which is the name, by the way, for the effort of the national government to respond to the concerns that they believe were happening in Minnesota regarding immigration and also regarding Medicaid. And those two things brought together ICE forces, which then the community and the state responded to.
Jeanelle Austin: Yes. So Operation Metro Surge was in full effect. Minnesotans were protesting. They were protesting Donald Trump. There were No Kings events that were taking place en masse. And people were fighting for their idea of democracy.
Mark Labberton: Right.
Jeanelle Austin: And one would think that this would be a perfect time where we’re fanning the flame of democracy and everyone should be encouraged to run for office and to get involved politically, because that is what a democracy is, and to exercise their rights for civic engagement.
However, what I learned quickly is that there is a system in place. And while I think people were excited about the idea of people participating in the system at the most early entry point, I don’t think people were excited about me participating in the system by jumping to state senator. And I had some people discourage me from running. I had people call dear friends of mine, and they called them and asked them if they would ask me to not run. I had people who—I had coffee with a friend and he shows up and he says, you know, I was telling some folks that I was coming to have coffee with you and they were upset that I was having coffee with you. He said, you know, you’re still my friend. You can run for office and still be my friend.
But there were people who were just really upset. I would show up in spaces and in rooms that I would normally be for my work and my job, and people would get quiet and start to whisper and have side conversations. And it really was a struggle for some that I chose to run in my district against someone that they were supporting.
I did coffee and conversations throughout my campaign every weekend from May through August. I had a Saturday and a Sunday coffee conversation at a different coffee shop each weekend. And one particular day, this gentleman came to meet with me, and he was so perplexed about my running for office that he said, why don’t you just move to another district and run there? And I looked at him and I said, because this is my home. This is where I grew up. This is my neighbourhood. These are my people. Why would I go someplace where I know no one?
Mark Labberton: Totally.
Jeanelle Austin: To run for state senate. And then I realized, because in many people’s minds, it is just a job, right? It is just a role. It’s about getting the seat. It really isn’t about the actual people that you’re serving in community. And this is the thing in politics. People move to different cities, to different states, to different locations because they want a particular job. And for me, it wasn’t about the job. It was always about the people.
And I remember in caucuses—so this was a huge thing too. I, though, I always considered myself to be an informed voter, and I would always do the work to figure out who’s running for office, what are their platforms, what is their record, how they engage in community. I would always do that work before I voted. But I was so under-informed about this entire process. I did not know about the election cycle really starting in February, and that there’s so much back work that you actually have to do to even get to an election, whether it be a primary or whether it be a November ballot. And there’s so much organizing and community organizing that needs to take place.
And I showed up in the caucuses in February, and I had never caucused before. I had no idea what was going on. And my team—because I organized a lot of, I organized youth and young Black folks and my community members, and we all showed up to the caucuses—and my team looked at me and said, Jeanelle, what do we do? We’ve never caucused before. And I’m like, I have no idea. I’ve never caucused before either, but we’re going to figure this out together.
Mark Labberton: Right, right. A lot to learn.
Jeanelle Austin: There was a lot to learn in the moment. And so someone told me, they’re like, it’s your job to go from room to room and give a spiel on why you want to be. And apparently all these candidates are running around from room to room and giving their speech for whatever platform they’re running for. And so I was like, okay, I can do this. And then I did. And I went from room to room and I won people over and I had amazing conversations.
But there were some people who asked some real hard and tough questions. And one person almost—they sounded angry, and they said, why would you run against Omar Fateh? This is his record. This is what he’s done for us. Your platform is very similar to the things that he’s accomplished. So why would you run against Omar Fateh?
And I remember in that moment, because we were still in Operation Metro Surge—it’s February, so we’re in the middle of it, and we’ve been protesting, and it’s polar vortex cold outside—and I said to this person, I said, is or is this not a democracy? Is it not our responsibility to lift up our best leaders and choose from among them? We are oftentimes choosing between the lesser of two evils. My race says nothing about Omar Fateh as a person or Omar Fateh as a candidate. It says everything about me as a person and me as a candidate, and what I believe that our community needs to thrive and what I know that our community does not have.
I built my platform by sitting down with youth and young people and saying, what do you need? What do you want? You have been going to the government. You’ve been placated. You are not getting what you need at the Capitol. So at the very least, what I can do is organize a campaign that centres your voices. And this is what the youth have said they needed. They still need, even with Omar Fateh having been senator for the last six years. So I am running because my community has said, we have needs that have yet to be met.
And the challenge for people to wrap their mind around the idea of democracy and the idea that there should be more than one candidate—and the undermining of democracy does not just come from a person who is trying to become a dictator or act as a monarchy. The undermining of democracy also comes when we are not lifting up leaders and we are not asking people to run. The seat does not belong to any incumbent. The way we have set up our government is that every so many years, whether it be two years, whether it be four years, whether it be six years, depending on the job, you are supposed to advocate to your community why you still want to hold the job. It does not belong to you. The seat belongs to the people. And the people decide who is going to represent them in government.
And it became clear to me that that notion of our government and of our democracy has been lost in these processes, because we’re constantly fighting red versus blue. And what power can we get within the House or the Senate or the executive office or within the judiciary branch? What power can we hold? And if we have that power, then we don’t want to give that up. And so therefore, nobody else should run, or nobody else could run unless they were from an opposing party. Then it would make sense if an opposing party would run. But if you’re from within the same party, how dare you run against an existing candidate?
And me being a protester and all, it filled my heart with joy to challenge everybody’s idea of what it’s supposed to be. And that actually encouraged me even more to run. To challenge what we have been doing, because the seats should not be guaranteed just because we were elected once sometime in our history, whether that be a short time ago or a long time ago.
And I also wanted to set this idea of, the choice should be hard because the candidates are good. And what I loved about the race that I ran is that we made the choice difficult for people. Folks wrestled with, who should we vote for? I love both candidates. And I love that for us as a district. I think that we need, as voters, we need to have experiences that force us to exercise our brains in the voting process. It should not be a clear choice for who we vote for. We should be able to have phenomenal leaders like an all-star team with a deep bench. And then we do the work of an all-star coach to say, okay, what is happening? What’s the context? And which player do I need to put in the game? So that way we could try to win.
Mark Labberton: So in a certain way, you were trying to make a meta argument—a meta argument which was not just about the details or the opponent that you faced, but really about developing a still deeper perspective and engagement around what democracy really calls for and should evoke within the community, which is thoughtful, committed people who are strong leaders who step forward and let the pieces fall where they will. But you’re trying to enrich the whole democratic process, not just to accomplish getting an office, which wasn’t your primary goal or expectation. Is that—
Jeanelle Austin: Well, I mean, getting an office was my primary goal.
Mark Labberton: Yes.
Jeanelle Austin: It definitely was. But this other thing evolved.
Mark Labberton: Yes, yes, I see.
Jeanelle Austin: As I started experiencing resistance that did not make logical sense—
Mark Labberton: Yes, yes. In a democracy.
Jeanelle Austin: Right. And so our team was like, challenge accepted. We’ll take that on too.
Mark Labberton: So what about this argument? Yeah, what about this argument though, Jeanelle? I mean, of course, I’m your cheerleader in having you run and thinking this is really a great thing. But just for the sake of the argument, there are limited resources, limited time, limited ability to focus. Did it feel to you a bit chafing, or understandably chafing, that some people would feel like you’re taking time away or you’re depleting resources that should go to support some other district’s needs rather than to support and sustain what was already a secure and largely approvable incumbent?
Jeanelle Austin: No. No, it didn’t. No, because I’m a different leader than Omar is. And the people who voted for me, the people who believed in me, the people who supported me, the people who donated to my campaign believed in my leadership and believed that in the season and the time that we are in, my leadership is what is necessary for us to succeed within government.
I deeply feel that the way in which government has evolved, it’s become less and less about people and less and less about leadership, and more and more about party and more and more about the political deals that can be made behind closed doors. And my campaign was really rooted in, these are the needs of the people. This is who we are as Minnesotans. We can figure out how to come together and make sure that everybody’s needs are met because we are Minnesotans, not because we are Democrat or we are Republican.
And when people were trying to pin me down and say, well, are you Democratic Socialists of America? Are you moderate? Are you more conservative? Like, where do you fall on the political spectrum? I would always answer that I am neither left nor right. I am justice leaning. And that is the most important thing, is to be able to identify the wrongs that are happening within our society and saying, how can I help make it right?
Because oftentimes what happens is that we associate the idea of being conservative and we associate the idea of being liberal or progressive with certain people. And then because of our biases and our classism and our racism and all the isms that exist within our society, we then start to judge and say whether you deserve to get those things that you need or whether you don’t deserve—or whether or not you deserve to get the things that you need and that you’re asking for. And we’re not willing to have the conversations with people. We’ll say, well, if you’re conservative, I don’t even want to talk to you because I know what you think already. Or if you’re progressive, I don’t want to talk to you because I know what you think already and I know what you’re going to say.
You actually don’t know what I’m going to say. You actually don’t know how I land on these issues. And I want you to come and have a conversation with me. And I want to have a conversation with you, because I want to learn the nuances of which you are approaching this position so we can better understand how we are holding the diversity of eighty-five thousand people within our district to represent our causes and put those forward to say the state of Minnesota as a whole could benefit from these things that the people in my district are asking for too.
Because that’s the other thing that people have to realize. When you are running to represent your district, it’s not an executive position. You don’t get to sign a piece of paper and the law changes across the land. You have to convince the other representatives from the other district that what your district is asking for could benefit their district as well, and then get enough people on board where you can get 50 percent plus one to say, yes, this needs to be a new established principle of practice, law, or this is the way the money needs to flow, et cetera, et cetera.
Now, oftentimes what people do, say, we just need to wait for a trifecta. And if we can get a trifecta, then we could pass all the laws that we need. It’s that simple. So we’ll work in battleground states or battleground districts to get our people elected so that way we can get a trifecta. Now, Minnesota is a swing state, and our Senate and our House has been narrowly split and divided for the past several election cycles. This past election cycle, our Senate, the Democrats had one more seat than the Republicans, and then our House was split fifty-fifty. And so the House was always in gridlock. And so we were constantly doing this back and forth.
One of the things that I did with my campaign, though, I took the campaign priorities that was created by youth in a deeply Democratic district. And I went an hour west and sat down with youth in a deeply Republican district. And I presented my campaign priorities and I said, what do you all think? And this youth group, maybe about fifteen to twenty youth, ages spanning from like sixteen to twenty-two, looked at my priorities and said, we need those things too. Or at least three of the four.
The fourth one around gun safety, the youth were split. Some of the youth were like, we definitely need gun safety. Others of the youth were saying, don’t take away my guns. And so then that opened up a conversation to not just have a conversation about gun safety, but because they were a youth group, to also have a theological conversation around gun safety. And what does it mean for us to be neighbours? And what does it mean to love your neighbour when it comes to laws and policies and how people are living? And the gun culture being different out in a rural space versus the gun culture in an urban space. And there could only be one law in the land. So what are you willing to give up? If you say that you love us as your neighbour, what are you willing to give up so that we can actually live? Because we’re dying. We’re literally dying in Minneapolis because of gun violence.
And those kids sat back and said, we had never considered it that way before. And they also said that they would be open and willing to spend more time in Minneapolis so that they could learn about how our way of life and our culture of life is very different from theirs, many of them living on farms or in farm communities.
And that conversation for me was extremely pivotal for my campaign, because my campaign was then able to be about fighting for Minnesota. Fighting for Minnesotans, not fighting for Democrats, not fighting against Republicans, but fighting for people to have their basic needs met so that they can live and that they can thrive. And it really was Operation Metro Surge that bore witness for me that Minnesotans had the capacity to come together across political lines to work together for something that they believed in, especially the idea of being a neighbour. So all of those things really shaped the trajectory of my campaign and how we went about speaking to our neighbours, how we went about door knocking, how we went about my speech at the convention.
I will say that—to quick pan the process out. So you have to go to caucuses. At caucuses, you become a delegate. When you become a delegate, you get sent to the convention. At the convention as a delegate, you vote on who gets the endorsement. Whoever gets the endorsement gets resources from the party to be able to campaign. Well, the more resources you get from the party, the less money that you actually have to fundraise, because those resources are being used by the party as opposed to your campaign. And then from the campaign process, that gets you to the primary. And the primary is when the voters across your district vote within their party. So if you’re a Republican, you vote Republican. If you’re Democrat, you vote Democrat. And if you’re independent, in the state of Minnesota, I don’t know if you have to choose one or the other, or if you just don’t vote at all and you just wait till the November election. It’s different from state to state.
But what I do know is that the way this system is set up is actually set up for an incumbent to win. And we realized that early on, because the incumbent already knows this going on. Someone like me coming in new, you don’t know how the system is set up. So the incumbent gets to email their existing supporter base and say, everybody show up to caucuses. And so all the people show up to caucuses and all the people become delegates. And I literally had people tell me, I would vote for you except that I already signed on to be a delegate for Omar. And that was my commitment, is that I would go to caucuses to be a delegate for Omar. So while I was going to the caucuses to recruit people to vote for me, he had pre-recruited people.
And that’s the system. It’s not anything bad against him. That’s the system. That’s the way the system works. You pre-recruit people to go with the intent to become a delegate on your behalf, you get to the convention, and so you already have the base of delegates that you need to win the endorsement. And so it’s already built into the system. And then the burden is on any newcomer like myself to flip votes. So you’re not just trying to get new people at this point. You’re trying to flip existing people who’ve already committed.
And so then once they get the endorsement, all the mailers go out on behalf of the DFL party with that person’s name and likeness. And so when we were canvassing—we actually canvassed 95 percent of our district—and we would knock on doors and people would say, how come I’ve never heard of you? Because on the mailers that they get are only the endorsed candidate. And so if you are not an endorsed candidate, it is an uphill battle to get people to even know your name. And you have to spend more money to be able to get your name out there, or put in elbow grease.
That’s what our team did. We were hours and hours and hours door knocking on every door. We didn’t even use the Voter Activation Network to just target voters. We said our best chance is actually to recruit new voters to the primary poll. So we need to knock on every door and flyer every door and make sure that the people come. So we started early and hit up about 95 percent of the district, which we were extremely proud of.
But I think the best part for me is I got to have some phenomenal conversations with my neighbours. I got to walk my district. I got to see what is actually happening in this broader area of South Minneapolis. I got to have important conversations and challenging conversations.
Like one Black elder, I stood on her porch as she talked to me about her concerns about affordability and her concerns about the unhoused population and the drug addictions that were happening and the impact it was having on her as a homeowner. And one of the comments that she said was, you know, a lot of these unhoused people, they just want to be unhoused. And I said, oh, that’s interesting.
So I left her porch and then I went around the corner about a block to a group of unhoused people, probably the group of people that she’s referring to that she encounters. And I asked them, do you all want to be unhoused? And they begin to talk about all of the systemic infrastructure that makes it extremely challenging for them to even get housing. Even from something so simple as having a phone and owning a phone, where if you are poor and you are unhoused, you may not have access to a phone. And so how is the government supposed to call you back and tell you that there is housing ready and available for you? So you may even miss certain cycles. Or they said it’s like eight months of a wait list. And so if you’re waiting eight months and you lose track of time because you’re homeless, it’s eight months of being unhoused and you’re just trying to keep your stuff together and move from encampment to encampment and keep the city from bulldozing your stuff and throwing it in the dumpster and the garbage. And so your life is always on edge and your life is always on the move. And so your world is very different. And that instability makes it very challenging to actually acquire housing. And if you don’t have housing, it’s very difficult to acquire a job, because what address are you going to put onto the job application? And so there are a lot of systemic barriers that people are facing.
I met with one woman who is on Section 8 housing. She explained to me—because this conversation was triggered because I asked her if I should leave a flyer at her neighbour’s house, who she lived in a duplex. And she said, no, because that’s empty. She’s like, actually, my house just got sold and I have one year and I don’t know if I will be housed or not. And I said, well, tell me more. And she explained that she was on Section 8 housing. And it’s very difficult when you’re on Section 8 housing because you have to give sixty days notice that you intend to leave. And so your landlord starts making plans for you to move out, but you don’t know how much the Section 8 is actually going to give you. So you can’t even begin to put an offer in at any other apartment, because you don’t know how much money you’ll actually have from the Section 8 program. And so you can easily get caught in the gap and caught in the middle and end up unhoused because your housing circumstances switched on you. And she said that actually happened to one of her relatives who ended up sleeping on somebody’s couch during that gap period while they were trying to find housing.
And so there’s so many challenges that people face. But what’s happening is we’re not talking as neighbours and we don’t know what the other person is facing. And we’re making assumptions based off of our own biases of the decisions somebody else is making for their lives and for themselves. And then we’re placing blame and we’re telling people what we think that they should do and what we think that they can do, instead of actually organizing and working together to make sure that everybody can live and everybody can thrive and everybody can be well. So those were like the beautiful yet challenging conversations we got to have on the campaign trail.
Mark Labberton: So let’s pause for just a moment. So what you’ve just taken us into is some of the nitty-gritty of what it involves being a candidate, how you have these conversations, how you run into the systemic and personal implications of systems that are and definitely are not working. What’s happening for you personally? I mean, you have been engaged as an activist for many years and you’re frequently in context where you’re having in-person conversations, but now you’re having it around a political office that you’re pursuing. What is happening for you personally as you’re experiencing what you’ve just been telling us about?
Jeanelle Austin: I’m on cloud nine, because I’m a problem solver. I love doing puzzles. And to me, these were puzzles that needed to be solved. And it was helping me understand more and more why this job makes sense for me. Because there are puzzles that need to be solved so that people can actually live and thrive and be well.
I think that I was also in a space of—well, I hit exhaustion when the temperatures went consecutive one hundred degrees in a row. And then we were navigating smoke from Canada, the wildfires in Canada.
Mark Labberton: You’re going door to door to door all during that time.
Jeanelle Austin: Yes. And people have stairs. Like, people have a lot of stairs and live on hills. And so all of this is physically draining and exhausting. And for several months, I was okay. Like I was okay up until mid-July when we had the consecutive one hundred degree weather, because it was the conversations that was giving me joy, and that joy was giving me renewed energy.
One of the other things that I actually did, though, in these conversations is I would ask, as a conversation starter, I would ask people, what is one thing that the government can do for you that would improve the life of you and your family? And that was a question that I actually started by asking kids and youth, because it was an easy conversation starter to help them think about government and politics. Most adults already know what they want or what they need, but for the kids, kind of introducing this idea of civic engagement, it was a simple one-point question. Like, what’s one thing that the government can do to improve the life of you or your family? And I began to realize that that question was actually helpful with adults as well. And at first I started telling the adults that this is what I was asking youth. What do you think? And then I just started asking them straight out, like, what’s the one thing?
And I learned a lot, because Minnesota has some of the greatest disparities in the nation. It’s racial and ethnic disparities. So in every area, in every category, we have the highest and the best if you are white. And we have the worst if you are not white. So whether it be schools, whether it be jobs, whether it be housing, whether it be—like, name the category. We are number one if you’re white and we’re like number fifty if you’re not white.
And those disparities are seen deeply in District 62 in South Minneapolis. We are a unique district in that we have some of the wealthiest people who live in Minneapolis in our district, and we have some of the poorest people who live in Minneapolis in our district. Whereas in some spaces, like, everyone in the district is like the same socioeconomic status. Not true for South Minneapolis. So when I would ask this question, I literally had some constituents say, I don’t need anything from the government. Like I have no need. And then I had other constituents who said, where do I begin? The list is too long.
So then fast-forward. Now I’m sitting in interviews with endorsement committees of different labour unions and what have you. And they are asking questions like, well, if there is one thing that you would champion, what would that be? Or if there’s one thing that you feel like our district needs the most, what would that be? And each time I had to tell them, there is no one thing. That’s impossible. Not for our district, not based off of what I’ve seen, not based off of what I’ve heard. The disparities and the gaps are so wide that we have to take a multifaceted approach to policy changes so that everyone can have an opportunity to live and thrive.
And I know that that’s disappointing for people who are engaging this kind of turnstile politics, where as an aspiring politician, you’re supposed to have one point. You’re supposed to have one thing that you’re going to champion. You’re supposed to have one issue that voters can stand on. And I learned very quickly as an activist, as a community leader, as a person who cares about people over politics and people over property, people over all the things, I couldn’t justify leaving people behind because the campaign says I’m only supposed to have one thing. And so maybe that messed me up. Maybe folks couldn’t get behind me because I couldn’t identify and isolate one thing and I couldn’t play the political game the way it’s supposed to be played.
But when you talk to Black men who are saying, I need work and I can’t find work. And can you give me work? What can I do for you? And then you’re saying, well, I would give you this job, but I already offered it to the youth because they’re also looking for work and jobs. And then you’re dealing with a person who’s unhoused. And then you’re dealing with a person who doesn’t have any food. That was a huge thing. A lot of the kids would say, we need food stamps. And then I would clarify, I said, well, do you need food shelves or food stamps? And they would say, well, we need food stamps because we want the dignity of being able to shop for ourselves and not just have whatever it is that someone gives us.
But then you sit and talk with someone who works for the county and who happens to work in the area of food shelves. And they’re saying the thing we need most is food shelves and food shelf distribution. And then you sit back and you say, okay, how do you organize government and advocate within government in such a way where you can first help the people comprehensively understand the diversity of the needs within our community, and then help the people prioritize what is most urgent and what can potentially wait? What are the multiple things that seem to be the most urgent that rise to the surface? Or if they’re competing ideas, then sit down and have conversations with people to say, I know that you really want the food shelf because this is your job and you see all the holes in the job. But our constituents who are actually the recipients of the food are saying, don’t want the food shelf. And so can we change our imagination of how we are getting people food so that way they can have the dignity that they deserve when it comes to meeting that basic need of eating?
So these are the complicated conversations that is required. And this is why government needs to be about people and not about party, because people will tell you what they need.
Mark Labberton: Right, right. So Jeanelle, if I was to just drop into this conversation and not know you and hear what you’re describing and understand some of the issues that you’re pointing to, and to know that you weren’t successful in this first run and you’re now figuring out next steps—it goes back to that originating question way back when the person said, what will you do with the power that you accumulate through the running process if you in fact lose? So where are you now in sorting that out? What are the next steps as a consequence of what you’ve been experiencing?
Jeanelle Austin: So I’m committed to the answer that I gave back in September. And that answer was I would give the power back to the people. And what that is looking like now, our team has talked about organizing spaces of civic engagement to help people learn how to run for office for the first time.
Actually, this is the reason why I have so much joy, even though I lost. My campaign primary party was off the chain. Like we had a dope party and so many people showed up. We had it at the People’s Way in George Floyd Square and we projected on a screen the results. And there are people who showed up and said, this is my first time voting in a local election because I finally found someone that I felt like I could identify with. Or people saying, you know what, I showed up to vote and I organized fifty people to come and vote in the polls with me for you. Someone said, I just got off the plane from Washington State and I don’t even live in Minnesota, but I wanted to be at your party because your campaign was so inspirational.
I had people tell me that they feel like they could do more with their life now because they saw me run for office. I had people tell me that now they’re considering running for maybe city council in their area because they saw me run for office. And because I ran, they felt it was possible for them to do something more with their life. There are people who voted simply because they knew somebody on the ballot for the first time in their life.
And I realized there’s something about civic engagement being extremely local that makes the political process empowering. When you know the people who are seeking to lead you, or when you know the people who are fighting for what you have articulated as what you need, you’re more willing to lean in. And so we want to be able to give this power back to the people by continuing to organize them and helping them understand the ways that they can step into their own power and lead in their communities.
We had a lot of positive response from Black men during my campaign. And during National Night Out, we were hopping from block party to block party. And I crashed this block party and there was a group of Black men having a conversation. And I walk up to them and I started talking to them about my campaign. And then I started talking to them about—because they were like, no, we don’t do the politics thing. We don’t vote. We don’t do that stuff. And I’m like, okay, cool. So let’s talk about voting. Let’s talk about what’s happening with the Supreme Court in 2026. Let’s talk about the gerrymandering that’s happening in the South. Let’s talk about the fact that as Black people, our voices are being stripped and we have to be able to fight that. And the best way we can stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the South is to actually use our power to vote here in Minnesota.
I don’t even remember everything that I said, but by the time I got done, these brothers gave me an ovation. And then one brother came up to me and he was like, so what books are you reading? And I was like, well, I’ve read a lot of books in my lifetime. Like, what type of books do you want to read? But realizing that the work that we were doing is helping people feel like it is possible to organize and seek out the resources that they need to thrive and be effective and be successful.
And success doesn’t always look like winning your race, but there are certain markers where you can tell yourself, my race helped raise the confidence in my community. That’s a win. My race brought people to the polls who were not going to the polls. That’s a win. These are things that we need to be able to celebrate and then keep organizing and keep working.
Do I work towards another race in the future? A lot of people want me to. A lot of people want me to run. Within hours of me not winning, people were saying, you need to run again. And you need to run when there’s an open seat because you would definitely win. Like that was a feedback I was constantly getting. However, because of the rebel that I am, I’m also like, I don’t want to run because someone tells me that I’m next in line to win a seat.
Mark Labberton: Right.
Jeanelle Austin: I need to run on my own terms. Being one of seven again. It needs to mean something. It needs to mean something.
And so in the meantime, in between time, we’re organizing. I told my entire team, because we were all green, I said, I want everybody to take the next three months and to write down your role and to write down your experiences and to write down the things that went well and the things that didn’t go well and the things that you feel like would be best practices for someone else starting a brand new campaign. Because no one should have to go through what we went through to try to figure it out from scratch. Let’s help people run for office. Let’s help people believe in the system again.
If people don’t trust government—we ran into that a lot. I don’t trust government. Like people looking at me like, are you trustworthy? And so, okay, I get it. People don’t trust government. Who do they trust? The people that they know who have been leading them. So why don’t we have those people run for office? Because those are the people that people trust.
And so let’s reframe again. Let’s reframe our understanding of democracy and go back to what it used to be. Or maybe—I don’t know if it used to be this at some point or not. I have no idea. But what it could be is neighbours lifting up their neighbours to say, you would be excellent to lead us. And then let’s choose from among them.
And I suspect that if we were to go about our democracy in this way, we could also potentially get the big money out of politics that everyone keeps saying that needs to move out of politics. We live in a capitalistic society and money moves off of supply and demand. And what is working is big money pouring into these campaigns and churning commercials out day in and day out. But if that stopped working because people started believing in their neighbours who were running for office and would rather lift up their neighbour than lift up the person they see in a commercial, then those big corporations are not going to put their money into campaigns, into those spaces.
And so we have the power as people to make this democracy what we need it to be. But we first have to believe in ourselves. We don’t have to believe in democracy. We have to believe in ourselves. We have to believe in our leadership practices. We have to refine our leadership theories. We have to understand what it means to be neighbours, what it means to lead neighbours, what it means to advocate for one another, and then learn the process of what policy is and how do you articulate that and navigate that hump.
But it doesn’t have to be this thing that nobody understands, that everybody fears, that everyone is disgruntled about and discouraged about, and feel like every four years in a November election, you’re choosing between the lesser of two evils. Leadership is never supposed to be like that. We would never do that for our schools. We would never do that for our corporations. We would never do that for our families. We don’t choose between the lesser of two evils when we want the best. We lift up the best and say, let’s choose from among the best. We don’t even do that for sports. We wouldn’t take the two worst players on the team and be like, who’s going to be our starters? Like, no. So why do we do that for politics? We can reclaim that, but it starts with us believing in ourselves and understanding what it means to lead and leaning into that knowledge of leadership.
Mark Labberton: Jeanelle, you have a fire in you that I think suggests to me that we’re not at the end of your political future. And I do think that what you’ve done is really quite a remarkable journey of being willing to simply put yourself right on the line in the way that you have, with the freedom that you’ve had and with the human-centredness that you’ve had.
I just want to say thank you. Just as a fellow citizen, you’ve taken your citizenship so seriously and that you’ve offered yourself as vulnerably and insistently, in a way, as you have. And it’ll be very fun to see how all this journey continues. But I think just for today, I want to say on behalf of all of us who are listening, thank you for being an active democratic participant, for making your stake in democracy apparent and tangible and local and personal, and for, in a way, blowing up the patterns of cynicism and distance and actually daring to step in right into the middle of the mix. So thank you for that. And thank you for doing it as faithfully and wisely and boldly as you’ve done.
I’ll look forward to picking up this conversation at another time when Jeanelle Austin will return again with yet more stories of what it means to be a faithful Christian who seeks to live out what social conscience and activism means in a good but unjust society and culture. And I’m just so thankful that you’re my friend and thankful that you’re a sister in Christ. Thank you for your work. May it long and deeply continue.
Jeanelle Austin: Thank you, Mark. I appreciate that. Thank you for having me.
