Since the 1950s, when federal relocation policies brought thousands of Native people from reservations across the country to cities including Minneapolis, Franklin Avenue, running east-west through the Phillips neighborhood, has been the center of the city's Native American urban community. The stretch of Franklin between Bloomington and Chicago Avenues became informally known as the heart of the urban Native community — a concentration of Native-serving organizations, gathering places, and businesses that served people who were far from their home nations. The American Indian Movement was founded at 1209 West Franklin Avenue in 1968 by Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton-Banai, and others who were responding directly to the targeting of Native men by Minneapolis police.
The AIM patrol — community members who followed police cruisers and monitored interactions — was one of the first civilian police accountability organizations in American history. Today Franklin Avenue remains culturally important to the Native community even as the neighborhood has diversified. The All Nations Indian Church, the Minneapolis American Indian Center, and the Little Earth housing community a few blocks south are among the institutions that make this a living community rather than simply a historical one.