By Marian Moore
MN Mourning | Photo courtesy of the Author
“One was Pretti one was Good
They got shot in the neighborhood.”
On Saturday, that is what came to me as a song a little while after I heard Alex Pretti’s name.
Friday was the big march - the tens of thousands of Minnesotans together. Everyone, so proud, showing off in the best way: how hearty with the 20-below, how strong against the fascism, how unified as a community.
I had to watch it online because I was tending to the conclusion of my convalescence. I’d had a surgery the day after Renee Good was killed and had to go to the post-op to get a clean bill of health.
How could I miss this big event in my town? But I did.
I watched the rally at the Target Center on a livestream. Felt grateful to see that the organizers started with our Dahkota neighbors telling about what happened in 1862 at Fort Snelling, a concentration camp for their ancestors where now there is a detention center for the ICE-apprehended detainees.
I woke up the next morning, Saturday, ready with a sense of “Put me in Coach.” I filled out the intake form at the website designed to help guide neighbors into engagement.
What neighborhood, what interests? Do you want to protect school children? Yes. Do you want to observe? Yes. I signed up for the rapid response of my neighborhood– the signal chat – “unvetted” it said.
The first note I see at 8:53 am – “We need people at 26th and Nicollet.” I see 26th and Nicollet in my mind: Black Forest, the first restaurant i went to in Minneapolis when I moved here in 1979. The Little Tiajuana Mexican restaurant– the site of a steamy makeout in my blue Toyota Celica, 44 winters ago.
More on the signal chat: “Do you need observers? I can get there in ten minutes,” someone writes. “I can be there in 15.” “What is the salute info (size, actions, locations, uniforms, time, equipment they are carrying)” “Back up needed at Black Forest parking lot just south of 26th. Multiple vehicles appear to be staging. One confirmed Ice.” Then,
“Be cautious. they are saying an observer at Glam Doll was shot.” Glam Doll a donut shop.
Oh my god. So then it starts to come. The videos. The news that the person has died. A man. A white man. An observer.
No name yet.
My plan had been to go at 2pm to a gathering of the singing resistance, at the Methodist church. Yes. Be part of the singing resistance, inspired by the Civil Rights movement, the Estonian singing revolution. I’d seen clips of hundreds of people on a neighborhood street last week singing in three-part harmony and marveled. YES, THAT.
I arrive and immediately see friends. Red-haired twins I first met in 1981. One of them says - “He was a nurse. He went to nursing school with my son’s good friend. His name was Alex Pretti.”
As I write now, I feel it in my body. The reality flows through me. Alex Pretti. Another 37-year old. My oldest son’s age. Keep breathing.
I enter the sanctuary. We are each given a candle and a red paper heart. I find a seat in the front by the piano. Singing starts right away. First a song about community. About coming together. Call and response. Young song leaders in the sacristy. The place is packed. 1000 people. Balconies filled. And, they say, an overflow room with 200 people.
“AY OH. We won’t be silent while our friends are gunned down.”
Another, a round, swelling in three-part harmony: “Everyone oh everyone oh everyone of these people are ours just as we are theirs…We belong to them and they belong to us.”
The candles we have are now lit, one to another from the central candle they have at the front for Alex. Silent prayers invited. All the leaders are 20-40 years younger than me. I am so grateful. They are so good. They know how to organize. They know how to hold space. I am happy to follow. Be part of the crowd. The Chorus.
That evening we get word there will be a 7pm vigil – hyper local. Organize one in your neighborhood. I get a notice from my neighbor that she is hosting by the stone poem garden in front of Kenwood School where my kids went. I go. It is below zero. I am offered a candle in a mason jar. There are about ten of us. We sing, “this little light of mine.” More neighbors stream by – there’s another vigil in front of the church down the street .
I don’t stay long because I’m cold and this is my first day out.
Time for a hot bath.
One was Pretti one was Good
They got shot in the neighborhood.
Last week I saw Jelani Cobb talk about how the slave catchers were slowed in New England by a surprising force of resistance. His point was that not all of the people resisting were necessarily against slavery - but they were against their neighbors being taken.
Neighbors and neighborhoods. This is at the heart of this resistance. Here in 2026 in Minneapolis. We love our neighbors. Don’t you mess with our neighbors.
One was Pretti one was Good
They got shot in the neighborhood.
Marian Moore is an activist, producer, writer and songwriter who has called Minneapolis home since 1979. For decades, she produced music; live, televised, and as a dj for community radio. In the last 20 years her primary focus has been engagement in the movement to transform consciousness about money so that it supports life and creativity and imagination, through convening, coaching, organizing and now writing. This fall, she co-edited a book about this work called Free the People to Free the Money to Free the People. She has been active with CODEPINK for 23 years.
