Bring Back 6th History Exhibit

Through the Bring Back 6th History Exhibit at Washburn Library during October 2024, you are invited to imagine the aliveness of Old 6th Avenue in the mid-1900s and discover how anti-Black and anti-Jewish decisions and policies expedited its destruction.

Look east along Olson Memorial Highway toward downtown Minneapolis. Ninety years ago this would have been 6th Avenue North, a vibrant, walkable commercial district with thirteen restaurants, eleven synagogues, grocery stores, a laundromat, ice cream shops, five churches, a streetcar line, and a half dozen nightclubs and live music venues.

Once called the “Beale Street of Minneapolis,” the old Near-Northside was an integrated Black and Jewish community that was destroyed for the construction of Olson Memorial Highway. What was once 6th Avenue, a thriving community and place of commerce, is now a trench of traffic polluting the neighborhood.

The Bring Back 6th Mobile Exhibit was developed in 2022 by Our Streets in partnership with the University of Minnesota College of Design’s Department of Heritage Studies and Public History and Harrison Neighborhood Association.

View the exhibit during the month of October at Washburn Library as part of Hennepin County Library’s Northside-Southside History Series. Presented courtesy of Hennepin County Library.

Learn how Our Streets and community partners are advocating for a new, more community-centered version of The Avenue on the Bring Back 6th initiative page.