Meet Robin

Robin Wonsley is Minneapolis’s first Black Democratic Socialist City Council Member. First elected in 2021, Robin represents Ward 2, which encompasses the Cedar-Riverside, Como, University, Prospect Park, and Seward neighborhoods on the eastern side of Minneapolis. Robin is a renter, labor organizer and former UMTC grad student.

Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Robin moved to Minneapolis in 2014. Over the years, she has been deeply involved in movements for racial justice, housing, education, and labor rights in the Twin Cities and beyond. 

Robin joined the board of directors for the Restorative Justice Community Action Network, where she expanded the organization’s role in delivering restorative and diversionary programs for people who had been charged with felonies and low-level offenses. Robin went on to work with 15 Now MN, where she helped build a movement that eventually won a $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Robin took a role as Community Organizer with Education Minnesota (Ed MN), the statewide teachers’ union. With Ed MN, Robin co-organized a successful campaign with the City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Parks & Recreation, and community partners that resulted in $2 million investment into the creation of three new Full-Service Community Schools.

Robin was part of the many actions and mutual aid activities that arose after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police on May 25th, 2020. She helped coordinate food distribution efforts on Lake Street immediately after the uprising, and in the months that followed she partnered with local groups to successfully block the relocation of the 3rd Precinct Police station and advocated for a community-centered model of public safety via the People’s Budget.

Robin has also worked to build a more just world through her own education. She graduated from Carleton College, and earned a Mini MBA in Nonprofit Management from St. Thomas University. In 2018, she began a PhD program in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, where she led and supported research projects that examined the effects of racism, capitalism, and sexism on Minnesota Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

To learn more about Robin’s life, and her professional and activist pursuits, check out her interview “The Revolution is my Boyfriend.”