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MPR News with Angela Davis
Angela Davis

Power Pair: Lessons about friendship from Resmaa Menakem and Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison and Resmaa Menakem in 1995
Friends Keith Ellison (left) and Resmaa Menakem in 1995.
Courtesy of Keith Ellison

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In life, friends come and go. Some friendships begin in childhood. Others form in adulthood. It’s rare for a friendship to span decades or even a lifetime.

But a long-term friendship is exactly what sustains prominent Minnesotans Resmaa Menakem and Keith Ellison.

Listen back to the first episode in our Power Pairs series — conversations with Minnesotans you may know individually, but in the context of relationship, you get to know them in a fresh new way. 

Trauma expert and therapist Resmaa Menakem and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison have been close friends since they met in their 20s, long before their careers took off. They even hosted a community radio show together, on KMOJ in Minneapolis, for a decade.

They tell MPR News host Angela Davis how they’ve leaned on each other in tough times.

Guests:  

  • Resmaa Menakem is a longtime therapist in Minnesota and a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in the healing of racialized trauma. He’s the author of his New York Times bestselling book, “My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies.” Earlier this year he released “Monsters in Love: Why Your Partner Sometimes Drives You Crazy―and What You Can Do About It.”  

  • Keith Ellison has served as Minnesota’s attorney general since January 2019. He was the lead prosecutor in the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and led the team that convicted former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on a charge of second-degree unintentional murder.  

Do you know a ‘Power Pair?’

Know two Minnesotans who have a close relationship and lean on each other for support in the work they do? Maybe they’re married or siblings or best friends. They could be business partners or a parent/adult child dynamic duo. We want to hear their stories on MPR News with Angela Davis at 9 a.m. weekdays.

Read more about our Power Pair series and submit your ideas here. Or email who you think we should talk to and why to adavis@mpr.org.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.