Klansman Founded City Where Daunte Wright Was Killed by Cop
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Sheriff Earle Brown’s membership wasn’t enough to stop Brooklyn Center from dedicating buildings and festivals to him—and his name is still all over the town.
The lights of an apartment complex named after a former Ku Klux Klan member shone just beyond the clouds of tear gas used to disperse protesters outside police headquarters in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, after an unarmed 20-year-old Black man was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Sunday.
The KKK member was Earle Brown, on whose farm the city of Brooklyn Center was founded back in 1911. Along with the Earle Brown Farm Apartments, there is the Earle Brown Heritage Center and Earle Brown Tower, and Earle Brown Drive.
Until June 2020, there was also Earle Brown Elementary School. And the city’s annual summer festival was called The Earle Brown Days until two months ago. The names were changed in a long-delayed response to a 2013 book by a Minneapolis high school history teacher. Elizabeth Dorsey Hatle’s The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota cited reports of Brown’s KKK membership back in 1923, when he was Hennepin County sheriff.
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