The young black man directing traffic at the barricade on Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis was not a police officer. He was one of the protesters occupying the street in front of the city’s 4th Precinct police station. For more than two weeks, protesters led by Black Lives Matter and the NAACP took over this street, just a few blocks from where police shot and killed 24-year-old Jamar Clark on Nov. 15.

Undeterred by violence from white supremacists and Minnesota’s cold and snowy winter, activists are calling not only for justice for Clark but also for an end to racist policing and unequal socioeconomic structures throughout the city and state. Police dismantled their encampment on Dec. 3, but protesters are vowing to shift the focus to the Minneapolis City Hall.

Racism underlies police killings of black men and women — in Ferguson, in Minneapolis, in Chicago, in Baltimore and across the country. But the violence meted out to black people goes beyond the actions of individual police officers. Institutional and structural racism is evident not only in a hail of police bullets but also in the disparate health care, education, housing and employment that ensure black people live with more difficulty and die earlier than their white counterparts.

North Minneapolis, the site of Clark’s shooting and ongoing protests, has a long history of police brutality, poverty and government neglect. White flight from North Minneapolis began in the 1960s, amid residential segregation, lack of job opportunities and high poverty levels in the black community. In 1966, local leaders opened the Way, a controversial community center aimed at empowering the black community through youth recreational and educational programs, as well as voter registration campaigns and pressure on the city for services such as garbage collection. The Way was identified with the 1960s Black Power movement, and quickly came under criticism for demanding reforms to the police department. The Minneapolis Police Department's 4th Precinct station now occupies the ground where the Way once stood.

Minnesota prides itself on progressive politics, a thriving economy and excellent public education, but these benefits do not extend to the state's black community. The experience of people of color in Minnesota, says a 2014 ACLU report, “is hidden behind the widespread prosperity of white residents.” The report notes an unemployment rate for black Minnesotans that is 2.8 times that of white Minnesotans, and widespread residential segregation. North Minneapolis has a poverty rate of 36 percent, compared to a citywide rate of 22 percent. The median household income for white residents in Saint Paul and Minneapolis is $70,900 compared to $25,517 for black households, according to the nonprofit research center, Minnesota Compass. High school graduation rate is 80 percent for white students compared to only 60 percent for black youth.

The Minneapolis Police Department has been criticized for racism and violence for decades. Prominent cases include the shooting death of Terrance Franklin in 2013, the 2006 shooting death of Fong Lee and the shooting of police officer Duy Dinh Ngo in 2010 by a fellow officer. Police dominate the city's supposedly civilian review board.