What Happened in Alabama?

Real estate accounts for 18% GDP and each home sale generates two jobs. It’s a top priority for state officials and business leaders across the country to build stable communities. In Minnesota, efforts to address inequity that keeps people locked out of the property market are well-advanced. Lee sits down to interview those directly involved.

Racial covenants along with violence, hostility and coercion played an outsized role in keeping non-white families out of sought after suburbs. Lee learns how these practices became national policy after endorsement by the state’s wealthy business owners and powerful politicians.

Host Lee Hawkins investigates how a secret nighttime business deal unlocked the gates of a Minnesota suburb for dozens of Black families seeking better housing, schools, and safer neighborhoods. His own family included.

This exhibition features members of Lee Hawkins, Jr.’s family and puts faces to the names of those found on the road to ending the cycles of trauma for Lee, his family, and for Black America.