For most
Minnesotans, the intervening years since the lynchings would
obliterate their collective memory, leaving a diminishing
handful to treat it, like all dirty secrets, as something
best left unspoken.
–William Green, Associate
Professor of History, Augsburg College.¹
The Duluth Lynchings Online Resource provides
an opportunity to remember and learn from this tragic incident
in Minnesota history. With the activities of the Clayton,
Jackson, McGhie Memorial Committee (CJMMC) — a citizen
group dedicated to the remembrance of the three lynching victims — and
the Duluth Branch of the NAACP, the lynchings have begun to
be studied more extensively. The 2000 publication of Michael
Fedo’s The Lynchings in Duluth by the MHS Press has
also spurred new interest in the lynchings. The Minnesota
Historical Society now presents this web site to provide an
in-depth and scholarly resource of primary source materials
on the subject, designed also for those unfamiliar with this
tragic event.
This web site facilitates access to over
2,000 pages of scanned documents, the vast majority originating
from MHS’s recently completed microfilm edition of Duluth
lynchings records. Completed in 2001, this microfilm reproduces
records from nine Minnesota government agencies and additional
related items. Until the microfilm edition was created, these
records were spread over several MHS collections, making them
difficult to locate and study, especially for younger students
and casual researchers.
This site is not an online exhibit, but rather
a digital collection providing primary source materials with
a minimum of interpretation. We have sought to provide a limited
narrative that provides a succinct explanation of the lynchings
and the context in which they happened.
In this way we hope to present the
Duluth lynchings as important and instructive – a part
of Minnesota history that, while painful to remember or relive,
should not be forgotten.
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