The
1920 Duluth Lynchings occurred on June 15, 1920, when three black circus workers were attacked and
lynchedLynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
by a mob in
DuluthDuluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...
,
MinnesotaMinnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Rumors had circulated among the mob that six African Americans had
rapeRape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d a teenage girl. A physician's examination subsequently found no evidence of rape or
assaultIn law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
.
The killings shocked the country, particularly for their having occurred in the northern United States, although four earlier lynchings had occurred in Minnesota. In 2003, the city of Duluth erected a memorial to the murdered workers.
Background
In September 1918, a Finnish immigrant named Olli Kinkkonen was
lynchedLynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
in Duluth, allegedly for dodging military service during
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Kinkkonen was found dead,
tarred and feathered"Tarred and Feathered" is a song by English punk rock band Dogs and is featured on their debut album, Turn Against This Land. Released on November 28, 2005, it was the fifth and final single taken from the album....
and hanging from a tree in Lester Park. Authorities did not pursue murder charges because they claimed that he had committed suicide after the shame of having been tarred and feathered.
During and immediately following World War I, a large population of African Americans emigrated from the South to the North and Midwest in search of job opportunities. The predominantly white Midwest perceived the black migrant laborers as a threat to their employment, as well as to their ability to negotiate pay rates. US Steel, for instance, the most important regional employer, addressed labor concerns by leveraging African-American laborers, migrants from the South.
This racial antagonism erupted into race riots across the North and Midwest in 1919; this period of widespread flourishes of violence became known as the
Red Summer of 1919Red Summer describes the race riots that occurred in more than three dozen cities in the United States during the summer and early autumn of 1919. In most instances, whites attacked African Americans. In some cases groups of blacks fought back, notably in Chicago, where, along with Washington, D.C....
. Even after the riots subsided, racial relations between blacks and whites remained strained and volatile.
Event
On June 14, 1920, the James Robinson Circus arrived in Duluth for a performance. Two local teenagers, Irene Tusken, age 19, and James Sullivan, 18, met at the circus and ended up behind the big top, watching the black workers dismantle the menagerie tent, load wagons and generally get the circus ready to move on. What actual events that transpired between Tusken, Sullivan and the workers are unknown; however, later that night Sullivan claimed that he and Tusken were
assaultIn law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
ed, and Tusken was raped by five or six black circus workers. In the early morning of June 15, Duluth Police Chief John Murphy received a call from James Sullivan’s father saying six black circus workers had held the pair at gunpoint and then raped Irene Tusken. John Murphy then lined up all 150 or so roustabouts, food service workers and props-men on the side of the tracks, and asked Sullivan and Tusken to identify their attackers. The police arrested six black men in connection with the rape.
The authenticity of Sullivan's rape claim is subject to skepticism. When Tusken was examined by her physician, Dr. David Graham, on the morning of June 15, he found no physical evidence of rape or assault.
Newspapers printed articles on the alleged rape, while rumors spread throughout the town that Tusken had died as a result of the assault. Through the course of the day, a mob estimated between 5,000 and 10,000 people formed outside the Duluth city jail and broke into the jail to beat and hang the accused. The Duluth Police, ordered not to use their guns, offered little or no resistance to the mob. The mob seized Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie and found them guilty of Tusken's rape in a
sham trialA kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
. The three men were taken to 1st Street and 2nd Avenue East, where they were lynched by the mob.
The next day the
Minnesota National GuardThe Minnesota National Guard is composed of approximately 14,000 soldiers of the Minnesota Army National Guard and Airmen of the Minnesota Air National Guard, serving in 63 communities across the state. The Constitution of the United States specifically charges the National Guard with dual federal...
arrived at Duluth to secure the area and to guard the surviving prisoners, as well as nine other men who were suspected. They were moved to the
St. Louis CountySt. Louis County is a county located in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of 2010, the population was 200,226. Its county seat is Duluth. It is the largest county by total area in Minnesota, and the second largest in the United States east of the Mississippi River; in land area alone, after Aroostook...
Jail under heavy guard.
Aftermath
The killings made headlines throughout the whole country. The
Chicago Evening PostThe Chicago Evening Post was a daily newspaper published in Chicago from March 1, 1886 until 1932. The newspaper was founded as a penny paper during the technological paradigm-shift created by the invention of linotype technology, and failed during the Great Depression...
opined, "This is a crime of a Northern state, as black and ugly as any that has brought the South in disrepute. The Duluth authorities stand condemned in the eyes of the nation." An article in the
Minneapolis Journal accused the lynch mob of putting a "stain on the name of Minnesota," stating, "The sudden flaming up of racial passion, which is the reproach of the South, may also occur, as we now learn in the bitterness of humiliation in Minnesota."
The June 15, 1920,
Ely Miner reported that just across the bay in
Superior, WisconsinSuperior is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 26,960 at the 2010 census. Located at the junction of U.S. Highways 2 and 53, it is north of and adjacent to both the Village of Superior and the Town of Superior.Superior is at the western...
, the acting chief of police declared, "We are going to run all idle negroes out of Superior and they’re going to stay out." How many were forced out is not certain, but all of the blacks employed by a carnival in Superior were fired and told to leave the city.
In its comprehensive site about the lynchings, the Minnesota State Historical Society reports the legal aftermath of the incident:
Mason served a prison sentence in
Stillwater State PrisonThe Minnesota Correction Facility - Stillwater is a close custody state prison for men in Minnesota, USA.Built in 1914 and located in Bayport, Washington County, it houses 1600 inmates in seven different living areas. Additionally, approximately 100 inmates are housed in a nearby minimum security...
of only four years from 1921 to 1925 on the condition that he would leave the state.
No one was ever convicted for the murder of Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton.
Memorial
On October 10, 2003 the event was commemorated in Duluth, by dedicating a plaza including three seven-foot-tall bronze statues to the three men who were killed. The statues are part of a memorial across the street from the site of the lynchings. The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, by Carla J. Stetson, sculptor and designer, with collaboration by editor and writer Anthony Peyton-Porter, is the largest lynching monument in the United States.
At the memorial's opening, thousands of citizens of Duluth and surrounding communities gathered for a ceremony. The final speaker at the ceremony was Warren Read, the great-grandson of one of the most prominent leaders of the lynch mob:
Read has written a memoir exploring his experiences with this discovery, as well his journey to find and connect with the descendants of Elmer Jackson, one of the men lynched that night. His book,
The Lyncher in Me, was published by Borealis Books in March 2008.
Popular culture
The first verse of
Bob DylanBob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
's 1965 song "
Desolation Row"Desolation Row" is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965, and was released as the closing track of Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited...
" recalls the lynchings in Duluth:
They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row
Dylan was born in Duluth and spent his early years there. His father, Abram Zimmerman, was nine years old in June 1920 and lived two blocks from the site of the lynchings. Zimmerman passed the story on to his son.
External links