Where Others Have Closed Their Minds,
Stenglein Listens

Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein
keeps showing up in surprising places.

by Doug Grow
Star Tribune July 29, 2003
http://www.startribune.com/stories/465/4012765.html

Stenglein, a political independent whom many DFLers suspect of being -- gasp! -- a Republican, journeyed to the Lino Lakes prison earlier this month to meet with Ed Poindexter, who has been in prison since being found guilty of killing an Omaha police officer in 1970.

For Stenglein, the meeting was another step in his quest to try to understand why so many young black men end up embittered and imprisoned. Poindexter has been attempting to deal with the same issue.

"People might ask, 'Why are you dealing with a lifer?' " Stenglein said. "That's not so hard to answer. We both belong to a club called humanity. He's interested in what [Hennepin County is] trying to do with the African American Men Project and I was interested in what he's been trying to do. He has a deep understanding of what's going on."

What most amazed Stenglein is that Poindexter still cares. "He's not coming out," Stenglein said. "Yet here he is, sitting down with young men and trying to keep them from coming back."

The meeting between the pol and the lifer was arranged by Berenice Bleedorn, a retired St. Thomas professor who for years has been trying to get someone in officialdom to listen to what Poindexter has to say. Bleedorn met Poindexter more than two decades ago. She was teaching prisoners college-level courses about thinking processes. Poindexter was as hungry and as bright of a student as she had ever come across.

It was the opportunity to pursue collegiate courses in prison that brought Poindexter to Minnesota in 1979. He transferred from the Nebraska system through an exchange program. (There would be little reason to transfer in our enlightened times. In recent years, we Minnesotans have decided that educating prisoners is a costly benefit they don't deserve.)

Despite 33 years behind bars, Poindexter remains a high-profile prisoner. Such organizations as Amnesty International never have stopped trying to win a new trial for him and David Rice, who were convicted of rigging a suitcase with dynamite. The suitcase exploded when it was lifted by Larry Minard, an Omaha police officer.

Poindexter and Rice were affiliated with the Black Panthers at the time of the killing. Both always have professed their innocence. Both also have been as productive as possible in prison. Rice, now known by the name Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen We Langa, writes newspaper columns, poetry and short stories. And Poindexter works with young prisoners.

Does that show acceptance?

"In the 33 years [of confinement], I've still not adjusted to it," he wrote recently in a letter to Bleedorn.

Yet he has never stopped trying to improve himself. He picked up a master's degree and wrote a book (unpublished). For the past 10 years, he has been a tutor in programs for prisoners who are about to be released. Those programs deal with everything from finding educational outlets to dealing with stress and anger.

In his letters to Bleedorn, Poindexter expresses both despair and hope for the fate of young black men.

"It gets harder by the day to reach these men in here," he wrote. "They're lost, Bee. And they don't seem to want to find their way."

Still, he believes he has solutions, which he says he has addressed in a "holistic system" he calls EsteemQuest. His program appears to zero in on "reconstructing attitudes" and on finding constructive forms of self-expression.

Although she knows she will be written off by many as a "bleeding heart liberal," Bleedorn says that some of the most creative thinkers she has come across are in prison. Certainly, those prisoners have special insight into why so many young men are failing.

But for years, no one would hear Poindexter out. Then, a few weeks ago, Stenglein, who is supposed to be an insensitive conservative, said yes to the trip that so many sensitive liberals had rejected.

"This is a breakthrough," Bleedorn said. "This says that people of goodwill can come together no matter the circumstances. Ed is trying to do something for inmates. Mark is trying to do the same thing."

Doug Grow is at dgrow@startribune.com.

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