Alika & Ralph Galloway

Interviewer: 00:01 May I have your first and last name with spelling, please?
Alika: 00:07 Alika Galloway. A-L-I-K-A is the first name. Galloway
G-A-L-L-O-W-A-Y is the last.
Ralph: 00:13 And Ralph Galloway. First name R-A-L-P-H and second
name G-A-L-L-O-W-A-Y.
Interviewer: 00:25 So in referencing this map that we have, do you currently
live in any of these areas or have you ever lived in any of
these areas and if you have, how long did you live here or
how long do you… Have you lived there if you still there?
Ralph: 00:40 Okay, since we live in the same household, I’ll just speak
for us both.
Alika: 00:48 Great.
Ralph: 00:49 We lived in the area near UROC, as I see this kind of is one
of the points of reference. I actually at 1623 Washburn,
Avenue North. And we’ve been at that location for
probably about 24 years now.
Interviewer: 01:17 Thinking back from when you first came to this area to
today what change have you seen, positive and negative?
Ralph: 01:37 Well some things that I’ve seen that I think are positive is
there seems to be an effort to garner more input from the
community, from the citizens of the community. There
seems to be more structure to be able to do that. I was
looking at the … Oh I forget… North Side, I think, Urban
Development, I can’t remember the part of the name of
the organization, but I was pretty impressed with the … I
looked at the website with the purpose, getting input from
the people that live in the neighborhood, and to be able to
get suggestions to inform proposals that would be written,
to be able to get resources that will really make a
difference in terms of impacting lives in North
Minneapolis.
Ralph: 02:58 Part of my concern, so this is on the other end of the
question of what hasn’t happened or what have you seen
that hasn’t happened and is a concern I have, is that those
instruments might be … And I’m talking about the people
that make up the committees and that, might be stacked
with people that aren’t enough people or rooted in the
community. So thereby the outcomes might be a little
skewed because it might not represent the citizenry of the
North Side.
Alika: 03:49 I would ditto that. I think that the … Well two things I
would say as I think about it is Pastor Ralph and our son
and both of our daughters attended North High School and
I’m not originally from Minneapolis, so when they
prepared to close North Minneapolis when that was
grounds for to close it, I was very grateful to see the
community in action. And so for me that was really
positive to see this organic ground swell of people so
invested in this, the symbol and the power of North High
School. And so ’cause often times I haven’t seen that kinda
action and activity and I was very impressed with how
smart people were about it and how strategic they were
and how they owned the heritage of North Minneapolis
and North High School, like how they identified so heavily.
Alika: 05:03 So that was one of the reasons why we wanted to do this