ANNUAL MISSING AND MURDERED INDIGENOUS RELATIVES RALLY - March 2025

By Vivian LaMoore, Inaajimowin Editor

Photos by BJ Roache,

Band member Mille Lacs Band members and hundreds of others filled the Minneapolis American Indian Center on February 14, 2025, joining together in solidarity to remember their loved ones at the Annual Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Rally They also wove through the streets in a sea of black and red carrying signs and sharing their grief. The red hand print on their faces is indicative of the voices that are no longer heard.

The Chief Executive's office brought Band members by the bus load to the rally. Chief Executive Wind said it was a pow erful day of honoring the many MMIR — men, women, girls, boys, LGBQI+, Two Spirit, and transgender relatives.

According to 2024 data from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s Missing Person’s Clearing House, over 8 percent of missing persons cases were Indigenous, compared to the approximate 1.5 percent American Indian population in the state.

Gov. Tim Walz signed into law the legislation to establish the first-in-the-nation MMIR Office in 2021. Staff are housed in the Department of Public Safety Office of Justice Programs (OJP) and work to implement the recommendations of the MMIW Task Force.

"We use this day as a time to increase visibility of this is sue, call on legislators and policy makers to be accountable to our communities, and to honor our families and relatives who have been impacted," said Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition Executive Director Nicole Matthews. "I look forward to the day when we no longer need rallies like this, because we will have ended this violence against our people.

Last year, 716 Indigenous persons went missing in Minnesota and 57 percent of them were women per the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Missing Persons Clearinghouse.

The state’s MMIR office says they provided services and resources to 28 families last year. In a heartfelt inspirational speech at the rally Minnesota Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan said, "As long as our women are standing, our women are strong."

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