(00:00:00) Thank you Greta. It's about six and a half minutes past twelve o'clock. And this is midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten tomorrow begins a week of Remembrance in Duluth week to remember an event in Duluth City history that most people have spent years trying to forget this are a midday. We have a special report on that incident the lynching of three apparently innocent black men by an angry white mob in Duluth. This are we're going to present that report and then we'll be opening the phone lines for your comments and questions a day a week to remember Around the turn of the last century many white people in the United States were eager to draw thick Bowl line separating the races. Sometimes they drew that line in blood the Tuskegee Institute recorded nearly 5,000 lynchings of black people between 1880 and 1930 historians say there were thousands more most lynchings happened in Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama the Deep South. So it was a shock when the headline Duluth mob Lynch has three Negroes ran and papers from the Duluth News Tribune to the New York Times, but the story quickly faded from the news and most people in Duluth were happy to forget the murders two generations of minnesotans grew up knowing little or nothing about it now Duluth is regaining its memory next Friday, June 15th is the anniversary of the lynching a committee of Duluth residents has planned a full week of memorial events. They say a memorial is important because the lynching is history, but Racism is not Minnesota public radio's Chris Julian and Stephanie Hempel prepared this report postcard from a lynching (00:01:59) on a June 19 1920 hundreds of angry men and thousands of curious onlookers surrounded the downtown headquarters of the Duluth Police. The crowd might have reached 10,000. They wanted the handful of police officers inside to turn over their prisoners a group of young black circus workers. The police had arrested the man earlier that day the accused some of the out-of-towners of raping a young white woman at the circus grounds later investigations cast serious doubt on the rape charges, but the howling mob outside the police station had no doubts. This is where the mob broke in I think this was a Sears store our it was a hardware store even then and the the mob came into this store, which is now the casino when into this store and the proprietor gave them rope for the hangings and said it was on the house. Michael fito wrote a book about the 1920 lynchings standing in the heart of downtown to luthi points across Superior Street to a handsome three-story Brownstone building full of offices. The word police is still carved in stone over the door Peta says when the mob closed in on the police station, the city's Public Safety commissioner ordered the 12 officers inside to holster their guns. He didn't want anyone in the crowd to get hurt a few officers came out here onto the street and try to fight the mob back with their bare hands and a fire hose but the crowd surged past them into the jail with a war that could be heard a mile away. Most of the cells were on this I think the second floor and so they went in and and broke into several of the cells while members of the mob sod and smashed on the bars some of the men inside the cells pleaded their innocence others prayed the people in the mob believed that 6 had attacked the girl so they tried to get Six, they only managed to get into three of the cells. There were several people in the cells with the prisoners asking questions trying to find out in their minds who the six were among the more than a dozen who were in the cells the people who were outside we're just saying just give us somebody and that first somebody was a young man named Isaac McGee who was just thrown from the cell to the hands of the mob who then took him out front brought him up the hill here one block were where he was. The first one hang Isaac McGee was beaten and bloody when he got to this corner right next to the Duluth Shrine Temple, which is still here. This is where they were brought to be hanged. And I don't know if why they would have been brought up the hill instead of down the hill but it may have been because there was a young man perched on top of this pole and they just assume that he's already there. We'll take them. There will have this this kid tie a knot above the lamp post there on the lamp post above the street and take care of business that way a priest named William Powers pushed his way to the front of the crowd and climbed part way up the Lamppost the priest managed to quiet the crowd for a few moments. He begged them to stop but members of the mob pulled father Powers down and hoisted Isaac McGee up then the mob dragged Elmer Jackson and Elias Clayton out of the jail and up the hill to the streetlight. When all three men were hanging battered and dead the crowd parted. So a photographer could capture the scene. This was a significantly posed photo. It took a couple of automobiles with lights to illuminate the The scene so that the photographer could get his picture taken in the center of the crisp black-and-white photo Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGee. Hang from the streetlight stripped to the waist their necks impossibly stretched and twisted Elias Clayton Lies Beneath their feet tossed onto the sidewalk to make it easier to frame the picture dozens of men lean into the picture facing the camera. I guess what this looks like is the kind of photo you might see at a hunting lodge where the guys had been out shooting bear and they came back and they said we got three you can see people on tiptoe the crowded into this shot. These are not people who are who are ashamed to be seen here. I mean, this is you know, I want to be in this picture. The one that quite stood out is the fellow who's to the left of the bodies who is beaming he's looks like he's very proud of what has transpired and that is the face that really stands out to me. Someone made postcards out of the photo and sold them as souvenirs postcards of lynchings were fairly common a recent book called without sanctuary as a collection of photos and postcards from nearly a hundred lynchings. It includes the picture from Duluth a lynching in northern. Minnesota was big news in 1920. It made headlines across the country. It stayed in the local news for months during the criminal trials that followed juries in Duluth convicted three men of rioting the longest sentence served was two years. No one was convicted of murder, but one of the black men who survived the attack on the jail was convicted of rape in spite of compelling evidence. He was innocent. He served four years in prison and then the story of the disappeared from the news in 1920 a few hundred black people lived in Duluth clustered on the edge of town. Most of them came North because they'd heard there were jobs Ethel rain ants grew up in Duluth. She says black people here mostly kept to themselves and kept quiet in the 1970s Nance recorded her memories for the State Historical Society. She says her father tried to start a local chapter of the NAACP before the lynching but the Negroes weren't interested and they said he was trying to segregate them (00:08:16) because we have no trouble here in Duluth. So we don't need an end of leafy Branch, but he had he had no trouble after this (00:08:22) happened the lynching Jarred black people across Minnesota into action Roy Wilkins was a student at the University of Minnesota. He went on to become one of the country's most respected civil rights leaders directing the NAACP during the 1960s and 70s in his autobiography Wilkins says news of the lynching was an Awakening. He writes. I lost my innocence on Race once and for all Newspapers fell silent about the lynching. It didn't make the history books, but black people in Duluth never stop telling the story quietly after church or over the kitchen table several generations of black parents handed the story down to their children as a rite of passage. That's what Eddie Nichols did on the night of the lynching Eddie Nichols had barricaded himself and some friends in their house. They thought the mob might come for them years later Nichols told the story to his sons. One of them Charles is now 77, but he remembers when his father sat him down with his brother for a talk (00:09:18) and told us that we just had to live the life we could but know that there were things below the surface that we're going to affect us time to time. He and my mother would both drop little precautions like (00:09:32) that because we thought everything was (00:09:34) Rosy, you know, and they said it isn't the veneers awful (00:09:37) thin Charles Nichols boyhood in Duluth might have seemed Rosie, but when he became a teenager in the 1940s, he was afraid to even walk Some Duluth neighborhoods when Charles Nichols took the streetcar to Gary where most black people lived. He says, he felt a twinge of fear as the car passed through Morgan Park the u.s. Steel plant in Morgan Park employed a small number of low paid black workers, which angered some of the white workers Charles. Nichols says black parents in Duluth warned their children never to get off the street car in Morgan Park. (00:10:06) It was just an Unwritten rule. You didn't do that and unfortunately the street car that went to Gary circled up around through Morgan Park and my parents were always concerned that if something went wrong with the streetcar and we had to get off and Morgan Park we might be In Harm's Way (00:10:23) for decades black families in Duluth handed the story down when someone new moved to town Old-Timers would pull them aside and tell them about the lynching. Samyama Curly's family moved to Duluth in 1950 when he was in high school one of his friends showed him the postcard of the lynching me being a kid coming from, Arkansas. (00:10:43) Those things like (00:10:43) that. They did have him down solve and I never (00:10:48) ever believe anything like that would have enough (00:10:50) Northup here. So yeah, I was just real shocking and when Sammy McCurley had children of his own he told them the story. They told him it's something that I never want them to forget. I have the picture and I gave it to them personally. I wanted them to be aware of what had transpired in this town that they were born and raised (00:11:13) him. (00:11:30) As decades past memories of the lynching faded like an old photograph tucked away in a shoebox, but they never disappeared over the years pieces of the story work their way to the surface in surprising ways back in the 1940s Sinclair Lewis moved to Duluth after he'd won the Nobel Prize for literature Louis worked on his novel Kings blood Royal in Duluth and interviewed Eddie Nichols and other black people about their memories of the lynching Lewis said his story in a fictional Northern Minnesota city and awful lot like Duluth the book makes repeated references to lynching and it bitterly attacks racism 20 years. After Louis is novel Bob Dylan recorded his song Desolation Row Dylan was born in Duluth his father lived in a downtown apartment at the time of the lynching and almost certainly Knew about it Bob Dylan song contains several fragments of the lynching Story the circus a riot Squad the waffling Police Commissioner gods of the hanging a painting the passports Brown. The beauty parlor is few with Sailors. The circus is in town ten more years passed and in the mid-1970s a teacher in the Twin Cities named Michael fedo decided to write a historical novel. He planned to set the story in the early part of the century in his hometown of Duluth as fetal put together an outline of the book. He remembered something his mother had mentioned years before in passing. There'd been a lynching he knew nothing more about it, but he thought it might add a dramatic twist to his novel. It was going to be a peripheral event that I was going to include in a chapter perhaps I would just simply pick up the book that somebody must have Written back in 1925 or so only to discover. There was no book The State Historical Society had folder that had a few clippings in it. So I just started to poke around and after reading about it over the course of a week or two. I filled a spiral notebook with notes and then I decided you know, this is the story this should have been written years ago and I forgot about the novel and wrote this instead. He knows book came out in 1979. He says the initial response was overwhelming indifference. He sold about 3000 copies before the small publisher went bankrupt, but it did get some people talking a few High School teachers started using excerpts in their history classes local newspapers. Sometimes ran stories on the anniversary of the lynching and a few people got to wondering about the question feto raised in the last paragraph of his book. Where were the bodies I think this is it right here. On a sunny spring morning a few miles from downtown Duluth Craig growl climbs out of his van and goes walking among the graves at the Park Hill Cemetery only some of the graves have markers because this section of the cemetery was reserved for poor people, but growl has been here many times and it only takes a minute to find what he's looking for three small granite slabs set low into the grass. (00:14:37) They have the names and they have the dates the best they could tell on the birth dates the death date they were sure of which is 1920 and then the saying underneath each of them is deterred but not defeated. (00:14:48) God doesn't know how the bodies of Elmer Jackson Elias Clayton and Isaac McGee ended up here (00:14:53) it it's clear that they did end up here. I mean, if you look at the records of the cemetery, it has the three names in it lists under cause of death (00:15:00) lynched for 70 years the bodies lay here in unmarked Graves the cemetery caretaker knew they were here but no one asked Craig Rao found out they were here 10 years ago. The cemetery is connected with the Lutheran Church Gras belongs. So he figured the church should Mark the graves. He urged his church and the local NAACP to work together raising money for the markers on October 26 1991 many minnesotans were giddy because their hero Kirby Puckett a black man hitting 11th inning home run to win game six of the World Series, but here in the cemetery a quiet crowd gathered to see the grave markers unveiled Craig Rouses much of the credit for the markers goes to author Michael fito who kept the memory of Clayton Jackson and McGee alive, (00:15:44) he put in the original first edition of his book that kind of like the final indignity was that people didn't even know where they were Barry and I think he's right. I think that was a indignity so they are now marked and my thing has been is that they were not treated as human beings in the last days of their lives. They should be treated as human beings and their death (00:16:11) Since the graveyard ceremony interest in the Duluth lynchings has grown enough that the Minnesota Historical Society published a new edition of Michael feetoes book last year back when the first edition of the book came out the Historical Society didn't even write a review. Several months ago fetal gave a lecture at the downtown library in Duluth a snowstorm had shut down much of the city and the Weather Service said to stay home, but about 70 people jammed into a conference room to listen to feel he told them he never drew a crowd when the book first came out but things have changed in the last 20 years the men who posed with the bodies in the photograph of the lynching have died in 1979 many people who had some connection to this were still alive. And I think it was a kind of thing of people just simply not wanting to hear about it in 1979. If we had done this I would have been here with a couple members of my family. Upstairs at the reference desk the Librarians say something similar these days more and more people want to know about the lynching. Head reference librarian David OC spins through a roll of microfilm Duluth News (00:17:21) Tribune from June 16th of 1920 (00:17:24) Duluth mob hangs Negroes three dragged from jail and hanged at Street Corner big headline. The film is scratched from use and it's cardboard box is falling apart from being (00:17:35) handled 10 or 15 years ago. There was the book and occasionally, I think you know students are do papers on it, but there's a lot more Community interest now, we have some old newspaper clippings that in the last few years. I've gotten some pretty heavy use and of course a lot more copies of the book new editions of the book (00:17:56) sometimes all ten copies of the new edition are checked out but Duluth Mayor Gary Doty recently found a copy on the Shelf Dodie sat alone at a library table with the book and a stack of note cards the mayor was reading up because he's agreed to help build a memorial to the lynching victims as mayor dodea has spent a lot of City money cleaning up and redeveloping the city's downtown. He Prides himself on bringing tourists and new businesses to Duluth. But when a Citizens group proposed building a lynching Memorial, he said no he thought it would be bad for Duluth image, but the mayor changed his mind. (00:18:28) It's a terrible event one that you know, I have mixed feelings about it's one they'd like to forget about in in the respect that it happened in Duluth, but certainly something that we can't forget about because it I think that something has to be (00:18:40) done the people who persuaded the mayor to support a memorial for the lynching victims call themselves The Clayton Jackson McGee Memorial committee Perry Kennedy is one of the oldest members of the group when he joined the Army Air corps after World War Two the military was still segregated. He served in an all-black unit like many of the people of his generation. He believes in attacking racism by getting people to face it and talk about it. He wants to hear more people talk openly about the lynching because to not discuss it leaves the ignorance there to Fester. That is the reason for that. Type of thing happening is ignorance and we understand now that if something happens the best is to bring it out examine it and see what it's worth everyone on the memorial committee wants more discussion of the lynching but some committee members worry about the way people discuss it Melissa. Taylor says people now talk about the lynching as a disturbing piece of Duluth past, but she says it's dangerous to think the lynching is just history. We don't actually hang men from lamp posts, but all of the undercurrent of emotion and hate and fear that drove this community to do that in 1920. Still exists when people look at the photograph of the lynching they sometimes say how could that happen in Duluth? How could that happen at all? Melissa Taylor has some idea she's lived in Duluth all her life still people stare at her everywhere. She goes she says she feels like an outsider. She's not willing to call it hate but it's hostility as if there's an uneasy truce between the races for her and for many other black people. There's no mystery about how it could happen how a mob could drag three men from a jail hang them in the middle of downtown and snap a picture. (00:20:43) Postcard from a lynching was written and produced by Minnesota public radio's Chris julen and Stephanie Hempel and narrated by Chris Julian our thanks to the Minnesota historical society and to Pat Moss at the Northeast, Minnesota Historical Center. So then she Bears straight through. Blood on the leaves and let love black body swinging in the Sun and Breeze Strange Fruit hanging from the poplar tree The loose week of remembrance marking legit lynchings begins tomorrow night with an address by Minneapolis. Mayor Sharon Sales Belton over the next week. There will be a concert film screenings a marathon book reading and a week from tomorrow on the actual anniversary of Memorial March to the lynching site and the unveiling of a plaque marking the spot where the lynching occurred. We should also note that there is much more information about the lynchings photos including the photo that was mentioned in the report audio recordings in the liking find them on our website, Minnesota Public Radio dot-org. Joining us for the rest of this hour to talk some more about the lynchings and what this event means for us. Today is author Michael phaedo whose book The lynchings in Duluth rekindled interest in this story also with this is Augsburg history Professor Bill Green who has researched the lynchings and also wrote the preface for the new edition of mr. Fierros book. We also invite you to join our conversation. We have a you have a question or comment about the report that you just heard. Give us a call here six five. One two, two seven six thousand. That's our Twin City area number 6512276 thousand outside the Twin Cities 1-800 to for 22828 Bill Green Michael feet. Oh, thank you for joining us today. Thank you. Mr. Vito. Let me start with you in your mind. It was this story actively suppressed over the years or did it just get ignored. (00:23:30) Well a little bit of both in part. It was just people thought that they should forget about it. But there's a story that circulated a long about the time I was doing my research that the local historical society and Duluth had a director or if not the director at least someone an employee who at one time I threw away the st. Louis County Historical society's files on this because apparently this this goes back to the late 40s or early 50s. She thought it was an inappropriate subject for students to want to do term papers on and so if there was no file, they wouldn't do these papers and and and that would kind of be the end of that (00:24:26) program. Now, you're a historian. Why is it important? We remember this history. It did occur after all what 81 years ago. Well, excuse me. Um, it has to do with understanding a little bit about who we are as people at the study of history really is an opportunity I think for us to be better today in our in our lives and creating a better future and we can only do that. If we have a sense of what it is to really be human in the most distressed distressful times in our lives, you know to live with illusion sets up for some some mistakes to be made for us to be making this bad decisions and this kind of a story has a way of So bring us two we really are. Mmm. Was there something unique about Duluth in 1920 that allowed this to happen or could this have happened? Pretty much anywhere in Minnesota? (00:25:31) Well, I think it possibly could have happened anywhere but there were several things that coalesced at the wrong time to cause this to happen in Duluth. The first was that there were a lot of young veterans of World War One in Duluth and they got into the war late and they were Heroes it really, you know, kind of did the mopping up and liberated Europe from the Kaiser and got a lot of parades and were treated as Heroes and young men of 18 19 and 20 and they kind of liked being Heroes as I suppose anyone would and then they came they came back home. Perhaps had a couple of parades and then had those expected that they return to normal just take whatever the job was a delivering. Look, whatever it was and nothing very heroic about these ordinary day-to-day jobs. So they were probably feeling a little bored. Secondly United States Steel having earned a profit through the the war and and the workers from the steel plant in Duluth wanted a greater share of the profits as well. And they at the time they were making twenty five cents an hour and they were there was a great deal of talk of a strike to increase the wages of those workers whereupon us steel recruited some black cotton field workers and brought them to Duluth. Those folks were making ten cents an hour picking cotton. So to almost triple their wage, it wasn't difficult to get them to move to Duluth. Now that this there weren't many but the there was the that kind of implied threat that that if you Those don't want to work for 25 cents an hour. We can find these black field hands down south will be happy to come here. So that kind of began some racial hostility. And then third the steel mill is out there in Morgan Park, which is a western neighborhood in Duluth. The alleged victim of this assault on the circus Grounds was a West Duluth girl. And so all of these things combined at the same time and cause some racial hostilities to just boil over at that time and it was it was you know, probably what was going on the minds of those people is that we've got black folks taking our jobs and now they're raping our women and it's not going to happen again (00:28:11) if I could just add to that. This is also a time when Duluth was going through quite a corrupt here. It and the leadership of the city and the police department in particular had been viewed as participating in the smuggling trade at Duluth was a major port of entry for Canadian whiskey during a time of prohibition and during the trials of the lynchers. The US Marshal was indicted in the police chief will it was indicted about a week prior to the lynchings themselves a young man finish I think immigrant for sure small-time Smuggler was caught on the road by the police and was was was was was was shot to death. And so I sense that in addition to the the points that Michael makes that there is also a special kind of resentment within the the laboring class Community towards the police in particular during the trials of the Here's for example, the defense those who are defending the of the attorneys defending the lint the alleged lynchers would blame the police for allowing the lynchings to occur and often times the juries would acquit the defendant in this case. So it seemed to be as much a reaction to the police department and one final thing on a larger context. This was an extremely violent time in America extremely violent time against African-Americans are everywhere once a week somewhere in a nation an African American was was being that's usually a male and usually for on as a result the allegation of rape but not just in terms of race. It was a violent time. In other ways u.s. Navy for example had a battleship outside San Diego and turned its guns on the refinery unless they turned over its oil and this is on American soil. So violence was how business was done at this time in America. I want to get to some less. Is involved here in but one last question before we get to our first caller 10,000 people plus or minus were watch this lynching occur. Is it fair to say that all 10,000 people were supportive of this action was this just a handful of guys who went nuts and then everybody stood around and watched or what? How could we characterize this group of people (00:30:48) you're right in saying that the all of the the mob was not actively participating what happened to some extent was that as the mob moved downtown the West Duluth mob that is folks from West Duluth who had come downtown to the jail there were enough of them to keep a street car traffic from moving and so people who were leaving jobs or would have Otherwise gone home couldn't get on A Streetcar to go home. So they were stuck and it's hard to estimate what their attitudes might have been except. I think they were probably sympathetic and if not sympathetic to the Mob they were certainly curious and wanted to see what was going (00:31:35) on and no real effort made to stop this event. That's right. The Tribune reporter Minneapolis Tribune reporter at the time characterize the event as a circus referring to the bodies is balloons going up. It seemed to that number of people in the crowd weren't they were drawn to it perverse curiosity but or morbid curiosity, but I there's also a sense that many in the mob or in the crowd on Lookers weren't all that certain what was going to happen next? I mean, it was something hard to believe that you could actually have a lynching of black people in Duluth and yet Here's draw that people seem to get caught in ensnared in when you're not sure how an event is going to turn out. There was an incident. I believe I got it from Mike where an African-American. Mr. Nichols. I believe who lived in Duluth stopped on the street car. He got out. He saw the mob walked up to the Mob and ask them what's going on and one of the people in mop told him. We think you better go home because we're about to Lynch some black folks and mr. Nichols himself was an African-American. So it seemed to be rather perverse sense of curiosity about the event that was occurring with these particular blacks who were from out of town history Professor Bill Green is with us Michael phaedo author and the author of The lynchings of Duluth lynchings in Duluth rather has joined us this hour to talk about the lynchings that occurred 81 years ago 1920. There is a week of remembrance that begins tomorrow in Duluth. King an event that a lot of people have tried to forget over the years if you'd like to join our conversation give us a call here six five one two, two seven six thousand or one eight hundred two four two two eight two eight first caller is from Duluth Tom. Go ahead. Hi. You got me, right? Yes, you're on the okay. Thank you. Yeah, I wanted to mention that there. There is a Ku Klux Klan in the Louvre still. I've talked to people that claim membership and a lot of other people on that level of society that have all the same attitudes and it says if you walk into the past when they eat when you listen to them talk about people who are black and there's also a a local prominent talk show host with connected with the wise use groups even and he's been for a long time for mint in the attitudes by using terms. Like he's used porch monkey on the radio. He's called claim that there's a welfare train or welfare wagon from Detroit and Chicago to Duluth to bring black people in here to perpetrate crimes and he lies about so many things but then he said that this a few years ago. There was a the murder of a white student by Native Americans and that somehow should even things out that was his inference. And he said this one just real quick that he said that this Memorial he was real mad that this Memorial was happening and it shouldn't happen because this was something that happened 80 years ago, and I just wanted to make people know that if we're remembering the wars which aren't good things either and we shouldn't forget the past because history repeats itself. He could use his same little rule. He keeps coming up with. Okay. Thanks. Thanks Doc. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Is it conceivable this could happen again? (00:35:21) I don't (00:35:21) know. Is it going to be right? No, I don't. I (00:35:23) don't think that that this can happen again under these same conditions or circumstances, but I think certainly that the attitudes that that fostered that 80 years ago are probably still prevalent throughout this this country. (00:35:45) Would you agree Belgrade? Well, I think that that lynchings could happen and they do happen Stillness as you know, the bird lynching in Texas, for example, but I think that if the other side of your question is whether things have changed, all right, I think they have changed in so much as we talk about these things there is there is no fear there is less fear. I think in facing the actions of a few these things do come to come to light and I think Society generally is in doing that showing a resolve to build on that pass to be better than it is, but I think we always have to be vigilant. That's the problem because this is these weren't strange people these weren't people who were poisoned with the crazy buggered they were Were people like like many of the folks we know and perhaps ourselves and you know that urge to do the Beast you lactis is very human Edward your question. I'm curious as to what happened to the priest and corollary question would be how did this event affect the religious communities in Duluth and we should note that the priest he refers to it was a priest who tried to intervene. (00:37:11) Yes. There were two of them. Actually. The father Powers was probably the most prominent of those two. He nothing happened to him physically there when he was if you heard in the report, he was pulled from the from the light pole that he had climbed but so he was not injured in any way and he just he continued his ministry for the rest of his career and was very highly regarded in the religious community in Duluth. There were other Hers from the pulpit who spoke out against this there was one of the the the minister at the First Presbyterian Church delivered a sermon and that sermon was widely reprinted. I remember I saw in a pamphlet containing the sermon at one point. I can many many years ago. So there were people in the religious community who certainly spoke out against what had happened (00:38:10) this event Drew national attention briefly at least what was the reaction around the rest of the state of Minnesota when news came out of this horror shock. Oh what the heck another day in Duluth. I mean what what what was the what was the response around the state? Well, (00:38:28) generally it was the horror. However, there were two newspapers one in Mankato and the other and Ali that wrote editorials supporting the mob activity (00:38:40) on what basis (00:38:42) That a low-class criminal element would be eliminated and those people wouldn't come here (00:38:51) anymore. It was a manly thing to protect our Womanhood one folk. Let me let me just add something about the quality of the message from the national press most of the press and to my knowledge all of the press the commented on this were basically from the northern papers and the sense was was outraged that Duluth in particular in Minnesota in general had had lowered itself to that of the southern states. There is a shame that that that that was placed on Duluth for betraying the superiority of civilization of Northern America as opposed to the South and some of that sentiment pricked the city into an acting various things to attempt to remove the stain from its name. But this was a country that was still divided north and south and the Civil War had not been resolved in effect in the hearts and minds of Americans and the Northfield very superior to the South and Duluth in one night had seen the murder of more black men than any Southern State and so are any southern city or town? Where were these things occurred? So the Press wanted wanted the one at redemption in a sense that perhaps we weren't more superior to the South seem to be the message. Hmm. They're reacting against Charles Nichols who we heard from in the report is on the line now the morning or good afternoon. Mr. Nichols have a good afternoon some further thoughts. Well one one correction, the man that got off the street car and asked what was going on with George cock senior. Not my dad and he had just come from the steel mills and was caught in the traffic jam. I think one of the important things Both my mother and father and their friends in the black community when we would talk about this. They taught us that hate was the reason for this and that we as as growing youngsters could not afford the luxury of hating people and so they emphasize continually all the way through till I left home to come down here to Minneapolis that hate was not a productive activity and to encourage either both myself and my children not to participate in that and as far as the religious community is concerned 12 in Duluth as well. As I suppose every place else is still the most segregated hour in our country and that hasn't changed a great deal in Duluth. There's the Calvary Baptist Church and the st. Mark's AME church, and I went there till I was 12 and then we were accepted over it the Episcopal Church. By and large the black community is still read it religiously segregated and Duluth, but it was a good town to grow up in but for a high school dropout employment there if you think it was poor for blacks the opportunities for high school black high school dropout. Where is 0 so I left? Okay. Thanks. Mr. Nichols prevent the call. Let's go on to another caller Ginger's online from Crystal Ginger. Hi, I've used some material in the past are the teacher that we worked with a group called The anti-klan Project through the former mini Minnesota Education Association. Human Relations Committee local attorney came to us with a slight a presentation in the late 70s that we could use on. educating about the Klan and this included the Duluth lynching and and the setup was a history of the clan with all the slides and tape and then comes to a very dramatic stop and says and here's a picture of a lynching in 1920 and downtown Duluth Minnesota, whether you're using it with Fifth through eighth graders or in staff development. There was a collective gasp and I think back to the comment about the superior attitude of of Your daughter is with regard to racism and Prejudice and I think this one single incident is an excellent way to get across the the issue that you know, the South does not have the corner on the racism and Prejudice market and then you can use that as a bridge to talk about current hate groups and go on from there. Okay and found it extremely effective in would urge teachers to included. Thanks Ginger probably perhaps a false dichotomy here, but is it is it a when we think about what happened in Duluth in 1920. Is it appropriate to think about that as as the product of a hate group or just a bunch of normal people who went berserk? What's the better way to think about what happened there? (00:43:55) I've heard Bill talked about this (00:43:57) before. Why don't you go ahead? Duluth was as Michael mentioned earlier was going through a really desperate time. And I think that when political and economic and legal forces seem to be contorting person's ability to do right? I think that Anything Can Happen Duluth had problems that it wasn't facing it wasn't dealing with and it was in part perhaps because this was a time in our history where we did not feel that these kinds of problems are problems that should be addressed. But the bottom line for me is that when people are unemployed and and and the lives that they lie don't make any sense when they can find when they feel the need for a scapegoat and they are able to find one these things will happen. I think that in essence is what Duluth the lynchings our valve why would people be so eager to pose for that infamous picture? I mean, it's one thing I supposed to get swept up in the in the crowd and but as you noted, mr. Vito, I mean these people were not at all hesitant to to pose for that picture of the postcard. (00:45:18) I think given the the tenor of the times this was something and you can see it in their faces and many of the faces that this is something to be proud of not to run away from I think they obviously had little fear that this would come back to haunt them by way of indictment and it was you know, there were there were there were the the Ely and Mankato papers. I believe said this was, you know, red-blooded men everywhere, you know, look to this. This is the way to go under these Kinds of conditions and you know, it may have been this sort of returned to heroism that they experienced in France a year before and they may have looked at it in very much the same way. They did a great a great thing for the city. (00:46:12) Also. There were a number of young men who were too young to go to war who perhaps saw this as a rite of passage in either case, I agree completely that this was something that was appropriate and yet and yet it was a mood that was quickly dispersed in time. Once you knew that the the militia was coming to town people dispersed but then within a day or two it really became I may be a long time in some settings, but it became apparent that they what had happened that night and it seemed that maybe this was mainstream Duluth. I don't know how wide this feeling was. Feeling was that there is a sense of something tragic had just happened and that we were party to it. I think that fuels the effort to deny and fuel see intent of the community to forget about this thing. There's a sense of shame that said in good the lynchers and for that matter the circus workers get a fair trial many of them went on trial (00:47:13) later. Well, I think that they didn't change the venue. And in that sense. Maybe they weren't fair. I think that the people participating thought they were fair. I thought in my research and maybe bill can bear this out. He has another take on it. I thought that the you know, there was a fourth black man who was convicted. I thought he had a an inept defense bill is a former attorney and maybe he might not necessarily think that but it may be that the things that I read indicated. I thought that he had a poor defense. (00:47:54) We referring to the lynchers or to the those who were accused of evolved. Well, as far as the lynches were concerned. I think that initially the trials seemed Fair as initially the the trials of the lynchers were dealing with eyewitness testimony and it was due process. But then as the jury's began to acquit more and more defendants the system began to contort itself a little bit in that they were selecting the same jurors who had found previous defendants guilty to serve on subsequent juries and that that was that's questionable Behavior. As far as the the suspects of the love the love the rapes were concerned that to seem to be a they seem to initially attempt to be fair, even though the evidence that was used. used to convict Max Mason the one black man who was actually convicted was questionable the remaining trials seem to reflect the time when the city was beginning to lose its heart to pursue this the jury that the trials in both cases seem to reflect an attitude of people wanting to just move on and so they would finish these things as quickly as possible so fair initially as far as Lynch's were concerned there was a desperation to get closure and in the final analysis, there was no real hard evidence as to what happened that night of the other of the the rape of the alleged straight rather similar stories lurking in Minnesota History that with this kind of impact that we ought to know about Well, I recently came across an incident of a black man who had gotten in considerable trouble who was attacked by a mob in what was then called point-to-point Douglas just across the river from from Prescott. He was not lynched detective from Stillwater searching for him found him protected him pulled a gun on the mob was able to get them on the in a carriage and whisk him away to Stillwater where he was he was held there were several incidences of lynchings against against immigrants against whites and against Indians as well the noteworthy thing about the lynching in Duluth was that three African-Americans in particular were actually lynched and this is perhaps very interesting to me because lynching was Was something that happened in Minnesota to to non-african Americans and it didn't create that kind of fuhrer. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly that means Michael fedo where can people get a copy of your book (00:51:04) probably at any of the bookstore's I know it's been around for the last 10 months or a year. So it should certainly be available and it's available online as well. (00:51:14) This Edition is not met with the resounding indifference of the first (00:51:18) edition. No, not at all. This is totally different this time (00:51:22) gentlemen, thanks for coming in today. Appreciate it. Thank you our guest this our author Michael phaedo who has written a book called The lynchings in Duluth help rekindle this story for minnesotans Augsburg history Professor Bill Green. Also joining us this hour. And again, we will be rebroadcasting this program at 9:00 tonight. Also, check out our website for much much more information on the lynchings in Duluth. We want to Apologize to all of you who tried to call in to join our conversation the last 10 minutes or so. Our phone system went kaput on us, and so we weren't able to accept any calls or deepest apologies. I know a lot of you would like to join the conversation do if you're near a computer the thing to do is get on our Soap Box Minnesota Public Radio dot org, and you'll have an opportunity to express your opinions and add your comments to the conversation today. Again, that's Minnesota Public Radio dot-org tomorrow more on Minnesota History tomorrow. We're going to hear from former vice president Walter Mondale who has been sharing his thoughts on his mentor former Minnesota senator and former vice president Hubert Humphrey. It's such a significant contribution in Minnesota History. We will hear from Walter Mondale and others on Hubert Humphrey tomorrow over the noon hour. So hope you can tune in Gary eichten here. Thanks for joining us today. (00:52:48) On the next all things considered a (00:52:50) flower that grows 6 inches a day and smells strong enough to earn the name corpse flower will have that story plus all the day's news on the next All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio partly cloudy Sky 65 degrees at Cana wfm 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. Paul could hit 70 degrees today and no rain is in the forecast believe it or not partly cloudy tonight low 50 to 55 and then tomorrow should be dry again partly cloudy sky with a high temperature in the middle 70s. It's one o'clock.