E-Paper
Who is Chauntyll Allen? St. Paul School Board member identified as co-organizer of Cities Church demonstration
Chauntyll Allen, who was part of the group that stormed Cities Church in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, is a founder of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities.
One of the co-organizers of a demonstration at the Cities Church in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area on Sunday, January 18, has been identified as Chauntyll Allen, a community organizer and St. Paul School Board member. Anti-ICE demonstrators sabotaged an ongoing service over online information that a pastor at the church has alleged ICE ties.
Allen showed up to the church along with the other protesters, according to kstp.com and videos on social media. She was caught on camera leading chants inside the church.
Allen was also seen in a video shared by CNN anchor Don Lemon, who was part of the crowd and live-streamed the demonstration.
Who is Chauntyll Allen?
Allen is from Saint Paul, Minnesota, according to her Facebook profile. She studied Psychology and African American Studies at Metropolitan State University.
Allen has served on the St. Paul School Board since 2020. She is a founder of Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, according to her LinkedIn.
Allen has previously faced criticism for her public comments on school safety and policing. After a student was fatally stabbed at Harding High School in 2022, she criticized the district’s decision to temporarily return police officers to schools, calling it a “status quo white supremacist solution.” The St. Paul Police Federation condemned her remarks, calling them inflammatory in the wake of a student’s death, according to Alpha News.
Allen previously also led a group of protesters who gathered outside the home of Alpha News reporter Liz Collin, per the outlet. At the time, effigies of Collin and her husband were smashed.
Allen said that she and the group that stormed the church on Sunday wanted to call for justice for Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was gunned down by federal agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis. The group stormed the Sunday Service after discovering online claims that one of the church’s pastors also serves in a senior role with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Social media posts revealed that the pastor identified by protesters is David Easterwood, who has been listed in federal records as the Acting Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations in the Saint Paul Office of ICE. However, there is no independent confirmation in major news reports that pastor Easterwood is the same individual listed in federal records. Eastwood was not at the Sunday service when the group stormed the church.
“God gave us that opportunity to open up the doors and show his followers that there was something going wrong in the spaces where they worshipped,” Allen said, according to kstp.com.
Allen was not the only one who organized the Cities Church protest. Nekima Levy Armstrong, a prominent activist and civil rights attorney, wrote in a Facebook post that it was co-organized by Allen, Monique Cullars Doty and Satara Strong-Allen from Black Lives Matter Minnesota, Black Lives Matter Twin Cities Metro, and Racial Justice Network.
The North American Mission Board, which is associated with the church, reportedly said that the demonstration “was not a protest; it was lawless harassment.”
