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.

Transcript

Part 3 – Action and Accountability

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: An apology is powerful. But in the same way that I think things like land acknowledgements are powerful. If you don't have policies and investments to back them up, then they're simply words.

You’re listening to Unlocking The Gates, Episode 3.

My name is Lee Hawkins. I’m a journalist and the author of the book I AM NOBODY’S SLAVE: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free.

I investigated 400 years of my Black family’s history—how enslavement and Jim Crow apartheid in my father’s home state of Alabama, the Great Migration to St. Paul, and our move to the suburbs shaped us.

Community and collaboration are at the heart of this story. I’ve shared deeply personal accounts, we’ve explored historical records, and everyone we’ve spoken to has generously offered their memories and perspectives.

Jackie Berry is a Board Member at Minneapolis Area Realtors. She’s been working to address the racial wealth gap in real estate. And she says;

JACKIE BERRY: We need to do better. We have currently, I think it's around 76% of white families own homes, and it's somewhere around 25-26% for black families.

If we're talking about Minnesota, in comparison to other states, we are one of the worst with that housing disparity gap. And so, it's interesting, because while we have, while we make progress and we bring in new programs or implement new policies to help with this gap, we're still not seeing too big of a movement quite yet.

Jackie says there’s a pretty clear reason for this.

JACKIE BERRY: Racial covenants had a direct correlation with the wealth gap that we have here today. Okay, if you think about a family being excluded from home ownership, that means now they don't have the equity within their home to help make other moves for their family, whether it's putting money towards education or by helping someone else purchase a home or reducing debt in other areas in their life.

Racial covenants were not just discriminatory clauses—they were systemic barriers that shaped housing markets and entrenched inequality.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN In my community of St Louis Park, there is, you know, there are several racial covenants. You know, our home does not have one, fortunately.

Lieutenant governor Peggy Flanagan is the highest ranking Native American female politician in the country. I asked her about her experience and how it informs her leadership.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: I can tell you that I never forget that I'm a kid who benefited from a section eight housing voucher, and that my family buying a home made a dent in that number of native homeowners in this state, and I take that really seriously,

LEE HAWKINS: You know? And it's powerful, because I relate to you on that. You know, this series is about just that, about the way that the system worked for a group of people of color who were just doing what everyone else wants to do, is to achieve the American Dream for their children. And so I see you getting choked up a little bit about that. I relate to that, and that's what this series is about.

Homeownership is more than a marker of personal achievement—it’s a cornerstone of the U.S. economy.

Real estate accounts for 18% of GDP, and each home sale generates two jobs. This is why state officials and business leaders continue to prioritize stable and thriving communities.

Remember earlier in the series we spoke about some other influential men in the state who were involved in creating the housing disparity gap that we have today.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: I don’t believe that that Thomas Frankson ever imagined that there would be an Ojibwe woman as lieutenant governor several, several years after he was in this role, and additionally, right? It’s symbolic, but also representation without tangible results, right? Frankly, doesn’t, doesn’t matter. And so, I think acknowledging that history is powerful. I think it has to do with how we heal and move forward. And we can’t get stuck there.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: Thorpe Brothers was very much a part of my childhood and sort of upbringing. But my own father, Frank Thorpe, was not part of the real estate business. He chose to do investments.

This is Margaret Thorpe-Richards. Her grandfather is Samuel Thorpe. Head of Thorpe Brothers, the largest real estate firm in Minneapolis, which he helped establish in 1885. I asked her to share her memories.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: My uncle, my dad's brother, Sam Thorpe, the third, also followed in the Thorpe Brothers family business and he ran it until kind of that maybe the early 80s or mid 80s. But anyway, they sold off the residential to another big broker here, and then just kept commercial. While I was growing up you know I was aware about real estate but not actively involved.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: Both my grandfather and grandmother, they were very much, I don't know, white upper class, you know, I remember going to dinner at their house, they weren't very reachable, like personally, so I never really had a relationship with them, even though they lived two or three doors down. And that's kind of my recollection.

LEE HAWKINS: Okay. And so, at that time, there was no indication that there was any racism in their hearts or anything like that.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: Oh, I don't know if I want to say that.

Margaret’s entry into the real estate business didn’t happen in the way you might expect given her grandfather’s outsized role in the industry.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: I went to my uncle Sam who was at the helm of Thorpe Brothers Real Estate it was still intact and he didn't see the opportunity or the talent that I had which I have to say I always have had I'm not going to be boastful but I'm really good at sales and so he never he never explored that and I think basically that was sexism.

We didn't really have a great relationship. My father died early. He died when I was 18. So that also impacted things.

It was my mother who's not the blood relative, Mary Thorpe Mies. She went into real estate during kind of the boom years of 2000. She said you need to come. She said, I'll help you get started." And we had a good long run for probably 10 years and then she retired, and I've been on my own until a year and a half ago when my oldest son Alexander joined me as my business partner. So now we're the Thorpe Richards team and he is essentially fifth generation realtor of the Thorpe family.

The nature of her family’s role in the origins of discriminatory housing policy is a recent discovery for Margaret and her two sons.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: I really didn't know about these covenants until it was 2019 when, and I was actually on the board of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors

I asked her how she felt when she found out.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: I was horrified. It felt shameful.

I'm not going to fix anything, but I would like to show up in a way that says I think this was wrong and I'd like to help make it right.

I felt like I needed to take some ownership. I also was a little worried about putting a stain on the Thorpe name by sort of speaking my truth or what I feel we have a huge family.

So I was reluctant maybe to speak out against, you know, the wrongs. However, I've just been trying to do my job at educating and being welcoming and creating it as part of our mission that we want to, you know, serve those who have not been well -served and have been discriminated and who've had an economic hardship because of the way that things were.

I can relate to what Margaret is saying here.

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: And that has proven to be challenging as well. I'm not gonna lie. I'm white. I'm not black. So, how do I sort of reach over to extend our expertise and services to a population that maybe wants to deal with somebody else who's looks like them or I don't know it's a tricky endeavor and we continue to try and do outreach.

I went through a similar range of emotions and thoughts while writing my book and uncovering family secrets that some of my relatives would rather not to think about. It led to some difficult discussions. I asked her if she’d had those conversations with her family -

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: Mm -mm. This might be it, Lee. This could be the conversation. I feel like it's time to say something from my perspective. I have a platform, I have a voice, and I think it needs to be said and discussed and talked about,

One thing that struck me in my conversation with Margaret is her advanced-level understanding of the issue. She mentioned the challenge of foundational Black Americans versus immigrants. Families who moved from the South looking for opportunities after World War one and two were most severely affected by these discriminatory policies.

Here’s Jackie Barry Director of Minneapolis Area Realtors;

JACKIE BERRY: Between 1930 and 1960 and to me, this is a staggering statistic, less than 1% of all mortgages were granted to African Americans across the country. That truly speaks to having a lack of equity to pull out of any homes, to be able to increase wealth and help other family members.

Efforts to address this are well-advanced here. Yet, lieutenant governor Flanagan is clear about how much more can and should be done

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: It's important to acknowledge and to provide folks with the resources needed to change and remove those covenants, which is a whole lot of paperwork, but I think is worth doing. And then figure out, how do we make these investments work? In partnership with community.

I asked why the state has not issued an official apology for its role in pioneering structural housing discrimination and whether she sees any value in doing so.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: An apology is powerful. But in the same way that I think things like land acknowledgements are powerful. If you don't have policies and investments to back them up, then they're simply words. So I think the work that we have done during our administration, is one of the ways that we correct those wrongs, explicitly apologizing. I think could be something that is is powerful, and I don't want us to just get stuck there without doing the actual work the people expect of us.

I wanted to understand what that work is –

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: I think when we increase home ownership rates within our communities, it's a benefit to the state as a whole,

LEE HAWKINS: right, okay, so not necessarily going back and doing reparatory justice, but looking out into the future.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: But I think that is reparatory justice, okay, making those investments in communities that have been historically underserved, you know, partnering with nonprofits that are led by and for communities of color, that are trusted.

I asked all three women for their thoughts on the pace of progress. Here’s Margaret –

MARGARET THORPE-RICHARDS: I don't see it changing very quickly. So I don't know how to sort of fuel that effort or movement. It seems like we talk about it a lot, yet the needle isn't moving.

And Jackie -

JACKIE BERRY: We need to increase our training and development. So in Minnesota, a realtor has to do um complete Fair Housing credits every two years, meaning that they're getting some type of education related to learning about housing discrimination and how to avoid it, how to represent clients equitably, understanding rules and regulations around fair housing.

And lieutenant governor Flanagan

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: Our legislation that we passed in 2023 was $150 million directed at first time homebuyers and black, indigenous and communities of color. We see that, I think, as a down payment right on the work needs to happen. The legislature is the most diverse legislature we've ever had, three black women who are elected to the Senate, the very first black women ever to serve. And I think we start to see the undoing of some of that injustice simply because there are more of us at the table.

Communicating these complex policies and ideas is no easy task at the best of times. I was talking to the lieutenant governor shortly after the 2024 presidential election which delivered a stinging rebuke of the Democratic party and many of the social justice initiatives it champions.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: Listen, I'm a Native American woman named Peggy Flanagan, I've been doing this dance my entire life, right? And, you know. I also know that Minnesotans really care about their neighbors. They really care about their communities and the state, and frankly, people are sick and tired of being told that they have to hate their neighbor. We're over it.

LEE HAWKINS: What do you say to them when they say that's woke and I'm tired of it. I'm fatigued. I didn't do anything, I didn't steal land, I didn't enslave people, and I'm feeling attacked.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: The biggest thing that we need to do right now, is just, is show up and like, listen and, you know, find those common values and common ground.

LEE HAWKINS: And this doesn't have to be a partisan conversation.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: It does not, and frankly, it shouldn't be.

LEE HAWKINS: Have you seen that kind of that kind of cooperation between the parties in Minnesota here with it's actually some of these reparations’ measures could be doable.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: I don't know that they say reparations, but I would say

LEE HAWKINS: It's a very polarizing word to some extent.

LT GOV PEGGY FLANAGAN: Everything that we do has to be grounded in relationships

Throughout this series, we’ve explored the legacies of Frank and Marie Taurek, who embodied allyship and fairness by making land accessible to Black families. James and Frances Hughes, built on that opportunity, fostering collaboration within the Black community by creating pathways to homeownership.

These families, in their own ways, represent the power of choice: to open doors, to challenge norms, and to plant seeds of progress.

Their stories remind us that even within deeply flawed systems, individuals can make decisions that echo across generations. But as we reckon with the enduring impacts of housing discrimination and inequity, the question remains: In our time, what choices will we make to move forward—and who will they benefit?

You’ve been listening to Unlocking the Gates: How the North led Housing Discrimination in America. A special series by Marketplace APM with research support from the Alicia Patterson Foundation and Mapping Prejudice.

You’ve been listening to Unlocking the Gates: How the North led Housing Discrimination in America. A special series by APM Studios AND Marketplace APM with research support from the Alicia Patterson Foundation and Mapping Prejudice.

Hosted and created by me, Lee Hawkins. Produced by Marcel Malekebu and Senior Producer, Meredith Garretson-Morbey. Our Sound Engineer is Gary O’Keefe.

Kelly Silvera is Executive Producer.