For this month’s CURA Story, we are excited to share our 2024 Annual Report showcasing the impactful work of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs over the past year.
This year's report highlights 141 projects across Minnesota, including 77 faculty/graduate student research projects, 21 community-based research initiatives, and 43 technical assistance projects. Our work has connected 214 student participants with 151 community and government organizations across 14 research areas—from housing and public policy to racial equity and environmental justice.
Our work also covered every corner of the state and beyond with 90 Twin Cities Metro, 13 Greater Minnesota, 35 statewide projects, as well as 3 projects outside of Minnesota.
Through meaningful university-community partnerships, we've worked collaboratively to address pressing challenges facing Minnesota communities. The report illustrates how CURA's research, technical assistance, and community engagement efforts have supported positive change and practical solutions throughout the state.
We invite you to explore the full report to learn more about our projects, partnerships, and impact in 2024.
Ishmail Malik Holt-Shabazz
Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities’ Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and its Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing Program as its now Co-Director, Ishmail Malik started as a Union Organizer for the AFL-CIO Wisconsin Statewide and with Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition to promote access, equity, and community benefits of bicycle infrastructure, policy, and engagement.
He also served as the Executive Director and Economic Development Organizer of North Minneapolis’s Harrison Neighborhood Association for 11 years and three years as the City of Saint Paul’s Director of District 6 Planning Council leading in both organizations community engagement projects, racial equitable development initiatives, business development, community benefits agreements, equitable development scorecard strategies, and land use planning. He also served as statewide supervisor for AmeriCorps in the early 2000s.
Also, as of June 10th, 2022, Malik is a registered civil mediator through the Conflict Resolution Center of Minnesota. He received an undergraduate degree in Liberal Arts in Human Services with a minor in Sociology from the University of Minnesota Morris. Malik currently sits on the Board of Directors for Twin Cities’ Men’s Center and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability. He is a former long-standing member on multiple grant review committees; multiple Minneapolis neighborhood association and Saint Paul district council volunteer boards as an officer plus in committee positions; is a 2004 graduate of Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing's Neighborhood Organizing Training Program, and is a past member of the Neighborhood Leadership and Organizing Advisory Committee. He is also a former Emergency Services Director for American Red Cross, Northwest Illinois-Rockford chapter.
Malik is a native of Chicago but has lived in Minnesota for over 28 years. His life has centered on family, spirituality, music, dance, and his love for learning, community capacity building, systems change, reparative racial justice, equitable economic development with local community benefits, and direct service. I'm honored.
Ned Wik Moore
Ned Wik Moore has over 20 years of leadership and organizing experience for racial, social, and economic justice. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Global Studies. In college, he studied liberation theology, social movements, and sustainable development in Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragaua. During and after college, he also participated in numerous human rights and international solidarity initiatives including serving as a student delegate, human rights and elections observer in Cuba, El Salvador and Colombia.
Ned worked for 7 years to build power in manufactured home neighborhoods in the Twin Cities suburbs and in Greater Minnesota, as a Community Organizer and Organizing Director at All Parks Alliance for Change (APAC). During that time he organized two dozen resident associations across the state to fight against displacement and parklord abuse which led to dozens local ordinances, successful lawsuits to expand and protect residents rights, improved living conditions, affordable housing preservation and cooperative ownership.
From 2009-2011 he was the Campus Minister for Social Justice at St. Catherine University where he led Justice Immersion Trips with students to El Paso and Denver exploring issues of immigration and homelessnes while exploring the connections between faith, social justice and leadership. He also supported and mentored students organizing in response to US militarism and human rights abuses in Latin America, food justice, 2010 Census, racial justice concerns on campus, and connections to critical community-led initiatives off campus.
For over a decade, Ned assumed various leadership roles in faith-based organizing to advance a relentless struggle demanding a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, training hundreds of community leaders, registering Latinx voters, and organizing countless direct actions in Congressional offices in Minnesota, Washington, D.C. and across the country, also conducting raid response and know your rights trainings, and offering direct support to families at risk of deportation.
Ned’s CURA involvement began in 2004 when he graduated from the Twin Cities Training Program for Neighborhood Organizers, later serving as an Advisory Committee member for CURA’s Minnesota Center for Neighborhood Organizing in 2007. He joined CURA staff in 2011, leading initiatives promoting racial equity and community organizing in response to the proposed build out of the regional light rail transit system in partnership with The Alliance and Nexus Community Partners. In partnership with The Alliance, CURA also supported the founding of Equity in Place, a regional wide coalition and diverse group of strategic partners from organizations led by people of color and housing advocacy organizations.
In 2015, Ned and colleague Malik Holt-Shabazz launched Neighborhoods Now! to support and develop neighborhood organizers and leaders in place-based organizing through a racial equity lens. To date, the program has seen nearly 300 graduates, and Ned has continued to coach, support and mentor dozens of program alumni.
Ned lives in Minneapolis, is a parent and spouse, and writes music.
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