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Insight News • December 15, 2025 - December 21, 2025 • Page 1
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December 15, 2025 - December 21, 2025
Vol. 52 No. 50 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Homeownership Build Wealth MN’s blueprint for legacy Jeffery Robinson, Program DIrector, Build Wealth MN INC and David McGee, CEO, Build Wealth MN
By Pulane Choane, Contributing writer (Part 2 in a series) One month after the Legacy Summit opened with a stark reminder that less than half of Black households in the United States own homes compared with nearly three quarters of White households, the conversation shifted from broad vision to the ground floor work of creating generational anchors. In Part I we traced the larger dream of long-term prosperity. This second installment brings readers into the room where that dream turned into a practical map for families who want to build and keep wealth. The homeownership panel opened with a moment
that set the emotional tone for the entire discussion. Moderator Jeffery Robinson told a story so ordinary yet so powerful that people in the audience nodded before he even finished the sentence. He recalled buying a home with his wife and not knowing that this simple act would one day become the lifeline for people he loved. “When me and my wife bought our house, we never knew that our house would be the place where I would save my best friend's marriage. ‘Cause when him and his wife separated, I asked him to move in with me and I placed them in the coldest room in the house,” he said, and before he could finish hist story, someone from the audience responded, “You know
that's wrong.” But Robinson retorted: “No, that was exactly what I was supposed to do, ‘cause I can't make my house more comfortable than the house that he's leaving or else he'll never go back. So, after two months of staying in the freezer, he was ready to go back”. With a chuckle, he paused before sharing the next example. “When my nephew came here from the Bahamas for school, that extra bedroom meant he could focus on studying instead of trying to pay rent. When my brother came home from incarceration, our home was the place he rebuilt his life. Today he owns a house with his wife and kids. All of that started because we had a place where
he could land.” The room stayed quiet as Robinson continued. “And so, when I when I think about how home ownership has expanded my legacy, my understanding of what legacy is, it's more it's much more than just owning a home. It's much much more than just owning a home. Every time somebody came to our house, we never had to ask somebody else for permission for them to move into our house. And that's what it's really about.” If Part I established why legacy matters, this moment showed what it looks like in practice. A home is not only an asset on a balance sheet. It is the tool that allows families to protect each other, reduce future
crises, stabilize children and create momentum for the next generation. It is the opposite of starting over every decade. Henry Rucker, a loan officer who has guided families into ownership for decades, picked up from that emotional foundation with a message that immediately grounded the room. He said the biggest barriers he sees are not income or even credit, but misinformation and silence. “We noticed there were a lot of women of color, African American women, who were getting help buying homes. And that is a blessing. But the men who were either already in the home or wanted to be in the home did not have the credit score or the system around them to make it possi-
ble,” he told the audience. Rucker said many Black men carry financial embarrassment alone, shaped by years of hearing rules that were never true. “People are walking around thinking they need perfect credit and twenty percent down. That is simply not true,” he said. “You can have a score in the six twenties and still qualify. You can have a score as low as six hundred. Those are facts, not myths. But if you don’t know the rules of the game, you cannot play the game.” He urged men to stop silently disqualifying themselves. “I always tell people it is never a hard no. It is a slow yes,” he said, leaning forward
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New statue to honor Gordon Parks: ‘Represents the best of Minnesota, and the very best of St. Paul’
By Tom Gitaa, Publisher, Mshale St. Paul will have a statue of Gordon Parks, seen here in 2000, at its downtown to honor the legacy of the country’s first Black director to make a major Hollywood studio film. His photography career started in Minnesota’s capital city. A new statue in St. Paul will honor photographer, author, filmmaker and activist Gordon Parks. State Rep. Samakab Hussein and state Sen. Foung Hawj – both Democrats representing St. Paul – announced Sunday during a press conference at the Landmark Center that they had succeeded in securing a $250,000 appropriation for the commemoration. The funding was part of the 2025 Legacy Bill that Gov. Walz signed into law in the summer. The two legislators carried the bill in their respective chambers. The announcement on Sunday happened on what would have been Park’s’ 113th birthday. He died in 2006 at the
age of 93. In 2008 when time came to dedicate a new building for the then Unidale Alternative Learning Center, St. Paul Public Schools renamed it Gordon Parks High School in honor of his legacy. On his birthday in November 30, 2000 HBO released a documentary about his life, Gordon Parks: Half Past Autumn. He was America’s first Black director to make a major Hollywood studio film and got his photography career started in St. Paul. Although a native of Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks made St. Paul his home after moving there when he was 14 following his mother’s death. Once in St. Paul he stayed with his sister Maggie and her husband, but his brother-in-law kicked him out when he was 15 making him homeless. According to an account by the Minnesota Museum of American Art, Parks then moved in with another sister Lillian, later leading to a stay at a boarding house in St. Paul. A movie poster of the 2000 HBO documentary about the life of Gordon Parks on display at the Landmark Center on
Credit: Courtesy of and © The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks
Credit: Mshale Staff Photo by Tom Gitaa
State Sen. Foung Hawj, Dr. Robin Hickman-Winfield, grandniece of Gordon Parks and State Rep. Samakab Hussein at a press conference at the Landmark Center in St. Paul on Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025 where they announced a state appropriation through the Legacy Fund to build a statue of Parks at Landmark Plaza.
Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025 during an announcement by state legislators on what would have been his 113th birthday that a statue to honor his legacy will be put up in the city where his career started. By his early twenties he worked various jobs in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, eventually getting his start as a photographer at the state’s only Black newspapers at the time, the St. Paul Recorder and the Minneapolis Spokesman (Now the Minnesota Spokesman Re-
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