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On June 15, 1920, police arrest
several young black men accused of raping a white woman. That
evening, three of them – Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson,
and Isaac McGhie – are taken from jail by a mob and
lynched.
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General view of
a circus. |
It was the John Robinson Circus that
brought Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie to
Duluth. They and other young black men were employed by the
circus as cooks and “roustabouts,” laborers who
performed a variety of physical tasks. Traveling by train,
the circus was greeted by an eager crowd upon arrival in Duluth.
They were in town for a free street parade and one day of
performances on June 14, 1920.
On the warm summer night of June 14,
Irene Tusken, age nineteen, and James Sullivan, eighteen,
went to the circus in Duluth. At the end of the evening the
pair walked to the rear of the main tent. Nobody is sure of
what happened next, but in the early morning of June 15th,
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. Little
evidence would be found to corroborate these claims. An examination
of Tusken that morning by Dr. David Graham, a family physician,
showed no physical signs of rape or assault.
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Duluth police
officers, 1919.
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Six blacks were immediately arrested
by the Duluth Police and held in the Duluth city jail, located
inside the police station on the corner of Second Avenue and
Superior Street. Already reported in the local newspaper,
news of the alleged rape spread rapidly. That evening a white
mob estimated between 1,000 and 10,000 people gathered on
Superior Street outside the police station. They met little
resistance from the police, who had been ordered not to use
their guns.
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View of police station after damage
by the lynching mob.
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Wielding bricks, rails, and heavy timbers,
the mob forced its way into the jail, tearing down doors and
breaking windows. They pulled all six blacks from their cells.
After a hasty mock trial, Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie were
declared guilty and taken one block to a light pole on the corner
of First Street and Second Avenue East. A few tried to dissuade
the mob, but their pleas were in vain. The three men were
beaten and then lynched, first Isaac McGhie, then Elmer Jackson,
and lastly Elias Clayton.
The Minnesota National Guard arrived
the next morning to secure Duluth and protect the three surviving
black prisoners. These prisoners, along with ten additional
black suspects from the circus, were moved under heavy guard
to the St. Louis County jail.
Though the city’s streets were
now calm, not everyone felt safe. Black residents stayed inside
and locked their doors, fearful of further violence.
The lynchings made headlines in newspapers
throughout the country. Many were shocked such an atrocity
happened in Minnesota, a northern state. The Chicago Evening
Post 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.”1 An article in the Minneapolis Journal accused
the lynch mob of putting “an effaceable 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.”2
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Reverend William M. Majors of St.
Mark's A.M.E.
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Many citizens of Duluth were similarly outraged.
Dentist Milton W. Judy, a prominent black Duluthian wrote,
“Duluth has suffered a horrible disgrace, a blot on
its name that it can never outlive.”3 Clergymen, including
Reverend William M. Majors of St. Marks A.M.E., an important
institution of the city’s black community, spoke out
against the lynchings, calling for the severe punishment of
the mob members. The Duluth Rip-Saw strongly condemned the
lynchings, advocating the “thorough house-cleaning”
and “elimination of every yellow member” of the
police department who had failed to protect the blacks from
the mob.4
Not everyone expressed regret. Despite
lacking evidence, some believed Irene Tusken was raped and
that the three victims, although never tried in court, were
guilty and deserving of their fate. The Ely Miner,
of nearby Ely, Minnesota claimed “while the thing was
wrong in principle, it was most effective and those who were
put out of their criminal existence by the mob will not assault
any more young girls.”5 The Mankato Daily Free Press,
referring to the three blacks as “beasts in human shape,”
asserted the triple lynching was advantageous to a fair trial:
“Mad dogs are shot dead without ceremony. Beasts in
human shape are entitled to but scant consideration. The law
gives them by far too much of an advantage.”6
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From the Ely Miner, June
25, 1920.
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In Superior, Wisconsin, just across the bay,
the Acting Chief of Police declared, “We are going to
run all idle negroes out of Superior and they’re going
to stay out.”7 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. |
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