20 May St. Paul’s first Black Mayor, Melvin Carter, to give opening speech at NiteCap Live

Melvin Carter, the first black Mayor in St. Paul’s history will give the introduction at NiteCap Live on May 29 inside Central High school’s auditorium. The 38 year-old former track star and hockey player’s rise to lead Minnesota’s state capital, a city of 300,000 whose power structure is predominantly white and Catholic is telling on a community focused on progress.

“I grew up in Winter Carnival St. Paul and hockey St. Paul,” Carter told the Star Tribune upon his historic Mayoral run. “But I also grew up in driving while black St. Paul. There is a notion that there are two St. Pauls … but I have lived enough to know it’s really just one St. Paul, and we have to cross those borders.”

This upcoming NiteCap Live to be held at Central High, a high school so diverse each classroom mirrors a United Nation rally, will be host Peter Bailey’s first show on the US mainland since surviving hurricanes Irma and Maria in his native US Virgin Islands.

“Being left to take care of ourselves in the storms’ aftermath showed me how important it is for communities to realize their greatest resource is in fact their own residents,” says Bailey, who’s producing a film series showcasing the islands’ recovery. “I’m excited to be bringing the show to St. Paul, a city I’ve long admired for its focus on innovation”.

The critically-acclaimed NiteCap Live series which connects high school students to local leaders in an entertaining yet educational format will also feature Shawntera Hardy, Minnesota’s commissioner of employment and economic development alongside James Walsh a veteran journalist at The Star-Tribune newspaper.

Students from Robin Hickman’s SoulTouch Productions and Central are slated to perform to celebrate the legacy of iconic photographer and filmmaker Gordon Parks, Hickman’s uncle.

The event is free and open to the public and begins at 10 am.