Sayles Belton: Activism important

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Knowing what your passions are and organizing people around them is the key to getting things done.

This was the central theme of what former Minneapolis mayor Sharon Sayles Belton shared with a small group of local women Wednesday night.

"It's not enough to sit there on the sidelines and criticize," Sayles Belton said. "You have to get in the game."

The former mayor, who is now a fellow at the Humphrey Institute for Public Policy at the University of Minnesota, began her talk by taking the audience through her life and pointing to people and events that she feels shaped her as a leader.

Those experiences came to play later in life when Sayles Belton was a parole officers and community activist and later became a member of the Minneapolis City Council.

A native of St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood, Sayles Belton said that predominantly African-American section of the city was particularly close-knit and many of its residents thought of it as their "own small town" where support wasn't too far away. In fact, the Baptist church where Sayles Belton still belongs remains, and many of her old friends still live in the area.

The first example of a leader who came along in her life was her grandfather, the chief mechanic at the Lowry Garage, where many prominent St. Paul lawyers and business people often left their cars. Many people in the neighborhood would come to her grandfather's house to talk about problems in Rondo because he had connections to those people. She also remembers her grandfather working as a community activist, fighting against the closure of neighborhood schools and parks.

Sayles Belton credits him for encouraging her to start getting involved with her community.

"But once the highway came through the neighborhood, I watched the people and the community fall apart," she said.

Watching Rondo die brought Sayles Belton anger, frustration and pain. However, it also instilled in her a passion and an attitude that life shouldn't be taken for granted and that citizens need to speak up about community problems. She said the destruction of the neighborhood "was also an issue of race; but my parents didn't talk about race and I didn't connect that until much later on."

Still, it had a profound impact. Once she reached college, the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement were both in full bloom and Sayles-Belton found ways to express her political feelings on the campuses of the University of Minnesota. The era gave birth to activism on a number of different fronts. She divided her attention between the women's movement and the civil rights movement.

"I never really understood the civil rights movement until I went to Jackson, Miss., as a 19-year old college student," she said. She explaining that while many young people went to Jackson to get people to register to vote, many women refused because they feared loosing their jobs if they turned out to vote. They told the organizers they appreciated the efforts, but they "simply didn't understand."

She used that experience to illustrate her belief that many people complain about problems but do little to actually solve them.

"People will sit and complain about things, but they never go to the public hearings. People will talk about books but won't go to the school board," she said.

At that point, Sayles Belton's talk turned to her goals when she was in office as the mayor of Minneapolis. She said she had four principles in mind: education, work, self-respect and personal responsibility.

She said education is lifelong and work "doesn't just mean a check, you've got to contribute to the community." Self-respect is important, but if you want it, you have to give it, she said. Personal responsibility is important because change doesn't happen unless people take charge of their affairs.

Sayles Belton said later that she wants to see government move away from what she calls "the Band-Aid approach" -- helping a situation simply to placate it instead of addressing its root causes. She also said she doesn't think women support each other enough and would like to see more women elected to office on the state and federal level.

"There's lots of noise on the sidelines," she said. "Take your passion and do something to change. If you talk about it more, then people will be more supportive."