Cup Foods is now synonymous with the death the police killing of George Floyd. Now the south Minneapolis institution is fighting for its survival.
minnesotareformer.com
The community want to get rid of the co owner of that store and replace it with Black owners
Sirdar said Black people still grieve the tight-knit community torn apart when Interstate 35W divided the “Black Southside,” and Central High School was bulldozed in 1982. Gang activity picked up in the 1990s, he said, before the Great Recession displaced Black families.*
Cup Foods has been a fixture on the corner since Abumayyaleh’s Palestinian-American family opened it more than three decades ago. And for about as long, neighbors have complained about it.
Cup co-owner Mahmoud Abumayyaleh carries a gun for self-protection after getting death threats. George Floyd died in a police killing after an employee called 911 to report Floyd passed a fake $20 bill to buy cigarettes.
The owner has even been named in sexual assault case” — a reference to Abumayyaleh’s 2014 conviction for a misdemeanor sex crime for assaulting a 15-year-old girl while showing her the basement of Cup Foods, which he had offered to pay her to clean.
Cup co-owner Mahmoud Abumayyaleh is flanked by his nephew T.J. Abumayyaleh and son Ubayola. The store has been run by the Palestinian-American family for more than 30 years.
They accuse the immigrant-owned store of exploiting the community for over 30 years and being a crime magnet.
“They are no longer wanted here,” a recent digital flier said. “Protest with your dollars.”
Some activists want to create a Black-owned corridor, and buy the Cup Foods building, making it the center of a newly vibrant “Black Southside.”
