by Charlotte Colantti
On March 5, 1978 in subzero temperatures, about 10,000 farmers marched across Pope County, Minn. in a staged funeral procession to “mourn the death of Justice.” The funeral, complete with horse-drawn hearse and giant puppets, was just one episode in the 6-year protest movement to stop the routing and construction of a high-voltage powerline through Western Central Minnesota.
With the help of archived audio from the Minnesota Historical Society’s Oral History Project, KFAI’s Charlotte Colantti shares this short history of rural civil disobedience in Minnesota. Listen below.
Support for MinneCulture on KFAI comes from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.