Remember the "state that works?"

That was the image Minnesota presented the world on the cover of Time magazine's Aug. 13, 1973, edition featuring a gleaming Gov. Wendell Anderson, clad in a flannel shirt, holding up a northern pike.

"The good life in Minnesota," the magazine proclaimed over the backdrop of a pristine lake.

But not everyone was living the good life.

Fast-forward nearly a half-century: A viral video shows the world Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd' neck, killing him and stamping the city permanently into the annals of the global struggle for civil rights.

The ensuing civil unrest lit the Twin Cities aglow and turned Minneapolis into an icon of what the political right sees as a dystopian future. Asked what would happen if he is not reelected, President Donald Trump predicted that "the whole country will be Minneapolis."

The stakes were not lost on Gov. Tim Walz, another Minnesota leader partial to flannel. He implored a special session of the Legislature to pass meaningful police reforms to address well-documented racial inequities.

"If destiny and history is not raining down on Minnesota today and tomorrow, I don't know what is," Walz said, adding: "the rest of the world is looking."

Kevin Diaz