Minnesota Landmarks presents Not in Our Neighborhood, an original historical drama written by Tom Fabel and Eric Wood and directed by Eric Wood. The play details a little-known episode of racist violence in St. Paul and will appear in Landmark Center's F. K. Weyerhaeuser Auditorium during Black History Month, February 2019.
Not in Our Neighborhood is the true story of the vicious opposition by white Groveland Park citizens to an African American couple moving into their neighborhood in 1924. Attorney William Francis - later the U.S. Ambassador to Liberia - and his civil rights activist wife Nellie faced petitions, demonstrations, death threats, and even crosses burned twice on the lawn of their new home. Ultimately, aided by the NAACP and later the city authorities, the pair moved into their house on the 2000 block of Sargent, where they stayed until 1927.