Burnsville Church To Host Tuesday Screening Of 'Love Them First'

BURNSVILLE, MN — A group of churchgoers advancing the cause of racial justice have organized a documentary screening in Burnsville with the aim of getting people to think about racial inequities.

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church is hosting a screening of documentary “Love Them First” Tuesday at 6 p.m.

The documentary was co-directed by Lindsey Seavert, who also worked as a writer and producer, and Ben Garvin, who did photography, cinematography and was also a producer.

The documentary about Lucy Laney Elementary School “follows the determination of a charismatic north Minneapolis school principal, Mauri Melander Friestleben, as she sets out to undo history,” according to its website.

The screening is being hosted by the church’s group PoP for Justice.

Jay Olstad, a member of both the church and PoP for Justice, said the group formed shortly after the killing of George Floyd. The congregation came together to not just talk about racial inequities, but to act on them, Olstad said.

Olstad told Patch about some of the questions the members of the group asked themselves.

“Let's see where we've done some good work, but let's also look at ourselves, look ourselves in the mirror and ask ‘What have I done or haven't done that has contributed to these inequities in our world and how can we change that, and how can we help?,’” Olstad said.

Rev. Jeff Marian, lead pastor at Prince of Peace, said that it was very important to him that the idea for PoP for Justice came from the congregation.

“When it's their passion and their initiation, more people are willing to come on board,” he told Patch.

Olstad, who knew Seavert and Garvin from working at Kare11, said he was inspired to show their documentary after Marian did a sermon on inequity.

According to Marian, despite Burnsville’s diversity, there isn’t always opportunity for conversation. He said he hopes the documentary can bring people together, give context to community pain and give people the opportunity to enter the conversations surrounding inequity.

Seavert said she first got involved in the story of Lucy Laney when she was covering the drive-by shooting of a toddler and the school’s principal Mauri Melander Friestleben holding a vigil for the boy.

“Friestleben said, ‘I'm going to stand here and raise the alarm because no one else is raising the alarm. All these kids think it's normal to cross crime scene tape on the way to school, and this is not normal,’” Seavert told Patch. “And she spoke so beautifully and she just stuck with me.”

Seavert said that the story made her think about her own son who went to school six miles away from Lucy Laney, and who would never have to “duck bullets on his playground.”

Seavert was pregnant with her second child at the time, and soon after covering the vigil went on bedrest. She said that she couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy Laney.

“The breakthrough that I had there was that it isn't those children in that part of the city- these are our children, they belong to all of us,” Seavert said.

After having her daughter, Seavert said she went back to work and decided to try to find out more about the principal.

Garvin became interested in Lucy Laney while filming a Thanksgiving story at the school shortly after the Jamar Clark police killing, Seavert said. There were protests happening near the school, helicopters circling and fires burning and Friestleben made an announcement over the loudspeaker while Garvin was interviewing students, Seavert said.

“He was so struck by her words, just as I was,” Seavert said. “The way that she speaks to kids with such honesty. (She told them), ‘I know a lot of you are scared right now. I know a lot of you smell smoke. I know a lot of you see things at the fourth precinct that you, you wish you would never see. But in our school, you are safe and you are loved.’”

Garvin ended up changing the story to be about the announcement. Seavert and Garvin were talking about their experiences at the school and wondered what would happen if they documented a year inside the school, Seavert said.

The biggest challenge the two faced with the documentary was gaining the community’s trust, Seavert said.

“We acknowledged our privilege and we set an intention to be listeners and to sort of link arms with the community and not tell the story about the community, but with the community,” Seavert told Patch.

Olstad shared his hopes about the documentary screening.

“I hope by having this film be shown at Prince of Peace, viewers will be portalled into someone else's world and outside of their own, where they can start to understand, and have compassion and understanding and empathy, and then begin to ask questions of themselves, ‘What am I missing? What can I do?’” Olstad said “The hope is that these little steps will turn into big leaps.”

“This isn't going to just disappear with one generation,” he continued. “It's going to be a struggle, and it's going to take people like us to stand beside our black and brown brothers and sisters to help create change. So I'm hoping that my kids will see this and say, ‘I want to continue what you started.’”

Olstad shared that PoP for Justice will be taking donations at the screening for Lucy Laney and North Community High School. Friestleben wants the donations to go toward the newly established track team, which helps keep the students engaged, Olstad said.

You can learn more about “Love Them First” here.