This year’s event honors Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens shot to death by the Trump regime’s masked and militarized fascist goons, currently occupying Minnesota as part of an intimidation and terror campaign targeting immigrants and citizens alike. Also honored this year are all those who in one way or another are creating community and standing up for their neighbors.
Don Samuels’ poem, displayed at the Luminary Loppet, says it all . . .
We come together as a city.
We burn with passion, care and love.
In this dark chapter, we’ve become
a beacon for our nation and the world.
They come to see our peaceful protests,
our service to struggling neighbors
and our bold defiance of the cold.
Our martyrs, Renee Good and Alex Pretti,
now shine more brightly than in life.
Their love brightens the light.
We are the luminary city,
shining brightly for the world to see
in this dark night of hate and cruelty.
Bring your fire.
Let’s light the world.
Writes artist Cole Redhorse Taylor . . .
The Loon is considered by Dakota people to be a revered bird because of it being a diver and going back and forth between our surface realm and the water realm of the Unktehi.
I’ve seen our state bird has been used as a symbol of resistance and resilience in these trying and unprecedented times. I never would have thought our state would enter global consciousness and discussion again and yet here we are.
But I am absolutely proud of the way our state has shown up for community and each other. And I’ll always represent being born and raised here in Mni Sota Makoce. My people’s blood is in the very soil we call home. My ancestors died for it.
I can’t do much, but all I can do is doodle on my silly little iPad to keep myself busy.
These are tough times but we’re standing strong.
Related Off-site Link:
Wisdom from Southern Lights: Jemar Tisby's Sermon on Righteousness and Justice – Diana Butler Bass (The Cottage, January 29, 2026).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “Ice Luminaries” on the Northside
• Honoring Renée Good and the “Astonishing Surge of Courage” of Minneapolis
• Honoring Alex Pretti
• “They Were Alive. Then They Were Not”
• Bruce Springsteen and the Streets of Minneapolis in the Winter of ’26
• Adam Serwer on How “Every Social Theory Undergirding Trumpism Has Been Broken on the Steel of Minnesotan Resolve”
• “It Was Never About Keeping America Safe”
• “ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Why Minnesota?
Images: Michael J. Bayly, Brian Mogren, Scott Dibble, and Cole Redhorse Taylor.
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