Who founded the ice protest in Minneapolis?
Executive summary
The Minneapolis “ICE” protests were not the creation of a single founder but the product of a national-local coalition: a national grassroots group called 50501 is credited with organizing the “ICE Out of Everywhere” actions while local activists and groups — including leaders associated with Black Lives Matter Minnesota — helped found and lead on-the-ground demonstrations following the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti [1] [2] [3]. Reporting across outlets frames the movement as both a coordinated national day of action organized by 50501 and as an organically amplified local uprising driven by community organizers and clergy in Minneapolis [2] [4].
1. A named national organizer: 50501 as architect of the mass actions
Multiple reports identify the national grassroots organization 50501 as the lead organizer of the broad “ICE Out of Everywhere” protests and the national shutdown events that coincided with Minneapolis demonstrations, with 50501 promoting coordinated actions in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. [1] [2]. Reuters and The New York Times coverage of the protests emphasize that a planned nationwide mobilization — framed as “No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE.” — was forecast and publicized by groups that included 50501, making the organization a principal founder of the national campaign that converged on Minneapolis [4] [2].
2. Local founders and organizers: Black Lives Matter Minnesota and clergy networks
On the ground in Minneapolis and nearby St. Paul, local organizers and activist networks played a central founding role in shaping and sustaining protests, with figures linked to Black Lives Matter Minnesota cited among organizers and clergy-led actions forming a visible part of the mobilization [3] [5]. BBC and PBS reporting named Monique Cullars-Doty, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter Minnesota, as one of those organizing protests in the Twin Cities, indicating that local movement leaders helped convert national coordination into direct street action [3] [6].
3. The proximate cause: two shootings that galvanized organizers and volunteers
The immediate catalyst for the protests was the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, events that organizers including 50501 and local activist coalitions cited as the reason for the national shutdown and mass demonstrations, and which generated large numbers of local constitutional observers and volunteers [7] [8] [1]. Media accounts explicitly tie the surge in organizing, training of observers and the “ICE Out” days to those killings, which transformed scattered local anger into coordinated regional and national protest plans [8] [2].
4. Multiple actors, multiple aims — why “founder” is the wrong singular label
Because the movement combined a pre-existing national infrastructure with energized local networks (Black Lives Matter Minnesota, clergy groups, community observers and sympathetic public figures), describing a single “founder” misreads the evidence; sources portray a coalition model in which 50501 supplied the national framework while local organizers and incidents supplied momentum and leadership on the ground [1] [3] [2]. Coverage also shows high-profile allies and cultural supporters bolstering turnout and fundraising, underscoring that the protests were shaped by many hands rather than one originator [4].
5. Contested narratives and official pushback
Authorities and federal officials defended ICE operations as lawful while criticizing protesters; federal and state responses — including legal actions and investigations — complicate the narrative of a purely grassroots uprising and highlight why multiple outlets focus alternately on organizer claims and government counterclaims [1] [3]. Some conservative outlets framed the protests as violent or politically motivated by partisan actors, while mainstream outlets documented broad civic participation and the role of named organizers like 50501 and local Black Lives Matter leaders, showing competing agendas in how the story is told [9] [10].
6. Bottom line: a coalition, not a single founder
The factual record in the provided reporting points to 50501 as the national organizer and to local groups — notably Black Lives Matter Minnesota figures and clergy networks — as founders and leaders of the Minneapolis protests; thus, the correct answer is that the Minneapolis ICE protests were founded by a coalition led nationally by 50501 and enacted locally by Minneapolis-area activists and organizers, rather than by one individual [1] [3] [2].