© 2024 WNIJ and WNIU
Northern Public Radio
801 N 1st St.
DeKalb, IL 60115
815-753-9000
Northern Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Art Of Mentoring In Minneapolis, Minn.

Preparing a wall for a mural.
Courtesy of MPTA
Preparing a wall for a mural.

Cross the Mississippi River on Saint Paul's Marshall Avenue and it morphs into Minneapolis' Lake Street — a colorful kaleidoscope of cultures.

As Lake Street's collection of murals grows, so does its sense of safety, beauty and community — thanks to groups of artist-activists.

Chicano artist Jimmy Longoria and his organization, Mentoring Peace Through Art, is one such group. The team paints local businesses with murals, Jimmy says, "embracing huge spans of wall, every inch covered in a jungle of graffiti-deterring, ribbony paint."

MPTA's goal: to "foster youth leadership through art projects, forge strong communities and fulfill expectations that art works."

Allison Muotka is an intern at MPTA. She listens to The Current.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Allison Muotka