What do you think?
Rate this book
The Lynchings in Duluth
On the evening of June 15, 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, three young black men, accused of the rape of a white woman, were pulled from their jail cells and lynched by a mob numbering in the thousands.
Up to a tenth of the city's residents clogged the street in front of the police station to witness the hanging. Reporters of the two major newspapers of Minneapolis and St. Paul shocked their readers with lurid accounts of the event. Leading newspapers throughout the North vilified Duluthians for having stained their city's good name and castigated them for being no better than southern racists. The governor of Minnesota, J. A. A. Burnquist, then president of the St. Paul chapter of the NAACP, commissioned his adjutant general to launch a formal investigation. Three dozen men were indicted for taking part in the mob action. And one year later, in reaction to the event, the state legislature enacted an antilynching law. Yet, today, the incident is nearly forgotten.
Up to a tenth of the city's residents clogged the street in front of the police station to witness the hanging. Reporters of the two major newspapers of Minneapolis and St. Paul shocked their readers with lurid accounts of the event. Leading newspapers throughout the North vilified Duluthians for having stained their city's good name and castigated them for being no better than southern racists. The governor of Minnesota, J. A. A. Burnquist, then president of the St. Paul chapter of the NAACP, commissioned his adjutant general to launch a formal investigation. Three dozen men were indicted for taking part in the mob action. And one year later, in reaction to the event, the state legislature enacted an antilynching law. Yet, today, the incident is nearly forgotten.
185 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2000
8 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 3, 2022
Finally got through this book. I kept getting interrupted with library books, and then with everything going on in the world, this subject matter was just too much to tackle. 💔 So thank you to my brother Chris for bringing this book to my attention. Growing up in MN, we NEVER learned about this in school, which is appalling. I like Fedo’s writing style, it was easy to read, well plotted out and well researched despite the lack of some evidence. He definitely moved you through the course of events in a meaningful way that made sense and almost put you in Duluth. It’s not an easy read due to the subject matter, but definitely an important read, especially as a Minnesotan. I understand mob mentality and how people can get swept away, but how do you not stop and have empathy for other human beings and think wait, maybe this is wrong? I mean the cover speaks for itself. And there were postcards made. That sold out. That is so messed up. The events of this book are just over 100 years ago in 1920, but still so recent. And what happened in Duluth is so tame compared to what happened in other places in our country and what is still going on today. Humans can be terrible. I’ve marked the locations of the memorial and the victims’ burial locations on the map in Duluth, so hopefully next time we get up there, we can stop there and pay our respects as well.
June 21, 2014
This vivid account of the 1920 Duluth lynching is both succinct and moving. Fedo's narrative seems the result of exhaustive research into Duluth's most shameful day. His conclusion that the alleged rape probably never occurred and the lynchings were a product of a virulent racism and very little other than the aroused imaginings of a bored citizenry. The conviction of one accused rapist was overturned five years later. While 19 white members of the mob were later arraigned, only two are convicted. They serve short sentences.
The story reads like the old Fonda movie, The Ox-bow Incident, where the your sympathies for the innocently accused Fonda character are heightened by the irrational anger and impatience of the mob. Fedo strokes the same indignation and his story is based fact. Very powerful.
The story reads like the old Fonda movie, The Ox-bow Incident, where the your sympathies for the innocently accused Fonda character are heightened by the irrational anger and impatience of the mob. Fedo strokes the same indignation and his story is based fact. Very powerful.
June 11, 2007
Horribly sad. Well-researched and written. Some Black carnival workers are falsely accused of raping a white woman in 1920. That same evening, an angry mob breaks into the jail and lynches them in the street. Some people think this sort of thing only happens in the south, but this was in Duluth, MN, almost as north as you can get. The book asks at what point is a person guilty by association, and it uncovered a story that people attempted to bury for a long time.
June 24, 2019
A piece of history I knew nothing about. I hope as a society we learn from these horrific tragedies, but unjust stories are still being told.
May 17, 2020
Difficult but important read. My only complaint is the lack of sources - footnotes and bibliography.
July 5, 2018
From 1882 to 1964, there were 4,472 lynchings throughout the country, 3,445 blacks and 1,297 whites (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects...). 1920, more or less the chronological middle of this seemingly endless festival of extrajudicial violence, saw 61 lynchings, including 3 black teenaged males. They were hauled from the Duluth city jail by more than 5,000 frenzied, howling men, women and children, kicked, pummeled and dragged 1 block to the corner of First Street and Second Avenue East, and strung up one by one from a lamppost. Duluth. Minnesota. Right around the corner today, on the 300 block of East Superior, is a Sheraton Hotel anchored by an upscale foodie restaurant. If your impressions of Minnesota were formed by Marge, exemplar of Minnesota Nice, in "Fargo," this might be a good counterweight: it can, and did happen there; it can happen anywhere.
Michael Fedo tells the story -- retrieves from the Memory Hole down which Duluthians tried to stuff it for many years is more like it. A journalist by trade, he manages to keep the narrative suspenseful though the outcome is fully known. How did it happen? The nominal reason -- anger among whites after several black carnival workers were accused of rape -- doesn't really explain much. (The rape charge was almost certainly fabricated; whatever might have happened, it wasn't that.) Fedo wisely doesn't offer any grand theories, though he suggests that using blacks by US Steel as strike breakers exacerbated racial tension. It can happen anywhere, and did. Homo sapiens descended from the apes and has been descending ever since.
Could it have been stopped? Quite possibly. The police force of less than 100 was ill-equipped to deal with a mob of that size and whatever slim chance they had evaporated when the misnamed "Commissioner of Public Safety" -- a spineless individual in Fedo's telling, unfortunately on the scene and giving directions -- ordered that the police not use weapons. The chief of police, another inept individual but at least with command responsibility, was 60 miles away with other high-ranking officers, chasing down still more presumed black suspects in a fool's errand. The police thus were left more or less leaderless, though a couple did display great physical courage in the event. A mere mile down the road, at the armory on London Street, 100 National Guardsmen had gathered for drilling and stood at the ready. They could have been at the scene within minutes and likely would have been disciplined enough to repel the assault, as they demonstrated too late in the aftermath. Had, that is, someone had the foresight to summon them. No one did. Several priests exhibited remarkable physical as well as expected moral courage. But that only goes so far against insuperable numbers. The wrong people, in the wrong place at the wrong time. An old, if inexpressibly sad, story.
This website: http://www.executedtoday.com/2013/06/... has an embedded public tv video, including an interview with Fedo, about 14 minutes long; worth the time.
Bob Dylan was born in Duluth. "Desolation Row" contains a reference to the lynchings, quite evocative, really, once you know what he's referring to.
Looking for a facile analogy? On March 11, 1854, an outraged mob stormed the jail in Milwaukee to get at a black inmate, Joshua Glover -- but to free him not to lynch. him. (He'd been arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act and was to be returned to slavery.) A fascinating story in its own right, to be sure.
Michael Fedo tells the story -- retrieves from the Memory Hole down which Duluthians tried to stuff it for many years is more like it. A journalist by trade, he manages to keep the narrative suspenseful though the outcome is fully known. How did it happen? The nominal reason -- anger among whites after several black carnival workers were accused of rape -- doesn't really explain much. (The rape charge was almost certainly fabricated; whatever might have happened, it wasn't that.) Fedo wisely doesn't offer any grand theories, though he suggests that using blacks by US Steel as strike breakers exacerbated racial tension. It can happen anywhere, and did. Homo sapiens descended from the apes and has been descending ever since.
Could it have been stopped? Quite possibly. The police force of less than 100 was ill-equipped to deal with a mob of that size and whatever slim chance they had evaporated when the misnamed "Commissioner of Public Safety" -- a spineless individual in Fedo's telling, unfortunately on the scene and giving directions -- ordered that the police not use weapons. The chief of police, another inept individual but at least with command responsibility, was 60 miles away with other high-ranking officers, chasing down still more presumed black suspects in a fool's errand. The police thus were left more or less leaderless, though a couple did display great physical courage in the event. A mere mile down the road, at the armory on London Street, 100 National Guardsmen had gathered for drilling and stood at the ready. They could have been at the scene within minutes and likely would have been disciplined enough to repel the assault, as they demonstrated too late in the aftermath. Had, that is, someone had the foresight to summon them. No one did. Several priests exhibited remarkable physical as well as expected moral courage. But that only goes so far against insuperable numbers. The wrong people, in the wrong place at the wrong time. An old, if inexpressibly sad, story.
This website: http://www.executedtoday.com/2013/06/... has an embedded public tv video, including an interview with Fedo, about 14 minutes long; worth the time.
Bob Dylan was born in Duluth. "Desolation Row" contains a reference to the lynchings, quite evocative, really, once you know what he's referring to.
Looking for a facile analogy? On March 11, 1854, an outraged mob stormed the jail in Milwaukee to get at a black inmate, Joshua Glover -- but to free him not to lynch. him. (He'd been arrested under the Fugitive Slave Act and was to be returned to slavery.) A fascinating story in its own right, to be sure.
October 4, 2017
Quick read on an awful subject. As a Minnesotan and someone who's been to Duluth many times, I was surprised that something so terrible in our state's history had never come up when I was in school or something.
The book itself mostly covers the events leading up to the lynching and the rest of that night. The last 3rd is what happened in the days and weeks after.
**Spoilers Below**
It's never truly clear whether or not any of the men arrested were guilty or if a rape or crime had even occurred at all. The way the book presents the evidence, it makes it seem like Sandra Teale (I think that was her name) was lying that she was raped because the one doctor that saw her afterward said it didn't look like she had been. Being though that the case is almost 100 years old, records having been destroyed, and how little physical evidence was kept, I think it's too hard to tell on that. But regardless of the crime happening, their attempts at ID'ing the people they say assaulted them seems very flimsy and no one should have been hung for a crime they weren't even convicted of yet. Super upsetting to read about, and it's made 100 times worse when the likelihood of them being innocent of what they were accused of seems high.
Mob mentality continues to freak me out. Doesn't matter if it's now or 100 years ago. People are frightening when they start egging each other on. Even more disturbing is that, while this may have been an isolated incident in a northern state like Minnesota (enough so that it warranted a book about it), you know this kind of thing was happening all over the south for ages. The smirks that some of the people have in the photo on the cover next to the people they had just strung up like cattle is disgusting. Things like this is what I think of when people try to claim that people are worse today than they used to be in 'the good ol' days'. Bullshit. People are, and always have been capable of horrific things. Now we're just more aware of it because we have more publicity for when they happen and more advanced ways of being able to kill each other.
Some things that I questioned in the book was how often people seemed to be quoted as saying or feeling something. It kept taking me out of the book because I was trying to figure out where the author could have gotten details like that having not been there himself and many of the people involved probably being dead by the time he wrote it. Couldn't tell if it was being made up to keep the story like a novel or what, but I don't see how the author could know what all of these people were apparently saying and thinking just based on interviews alone. Especially since this book was written less than 20 years ago. Could be wrong on that, but that was my consistent thought while I was reading. I do remember him mentioning in the beginning that he got a lot of information from an old out of print book or something that someone had written years before him, so maybe that's where some of it came from.
The book itself mostly covers the events leading up to the lynching and the rest of that night. The last 3rd is what happened in the days and weeks after.
**Spoilers Below**
It's never truly clear whether or not any of the men arrested were guilty or if a rape or crime had even occurred at all. The way the book presents the evidence, it makes it seem like Sandra Teale (I think that was her name) was lying that she was raped because the one doctor that saw her afterward said it didn't look like she had been. Being though that the case is almost 100 years old, records having been destroyed, and how little physical evidence was kept, I think it's too hard to tell on that. But regardless of the crime happening, their attempts at ID'ing the people they say assaulted them seems very flimsy and no one should have been hung for a crime they weren't even convicted of yet. Super upsetting to read about, and it's made 100 times worse when the likelihood of them being innocent of what they were accused of seems high.
Mob mentality continues to freak me out. Doesn't matter if it's now or 100 years ago. People are frightening when they start egging each other on. Even more disturbing is that, while this may have been an isolated incident in a northern state like Minnesota (enough so that it warranted a book about it), you know this kind of thing was happening all over the south for ages. The smirks that some of the people have in the photo on the cover next to the people they had just strung up like cattle is disgusting. Things like this is what I think of when people try to claim that people are worse today than they used to be in 'the good ol' days'. Bullshit. People are, and always have been capable of horrific things. Now we're just more aware of it because we have more publicity for when they happen and more advanced ways of being able to kill each other.
Some things that I questioned in the book was how often people seemed to be quoted as saying or feeling something. It kept taking me out of the book because I was trying to figure out where the author could have gotten details like that having not been there himself and many of the people involved probably being dead by the time he wrote it. Couldn't tell if it was being made up to keep the story like a novel or what, but I don't see how the author could know what all of these people were apparently saying and thinking just based on interviews alone. Especially since this book was written less than 20 years ago. Could be wrong on that, but that was my consistent thought while I was reading. I do remember him mentioning in the beginning that he got a lot of information from an old out of print book or something that someone had written years before him, so maybe that's where some of it came from.
August 5, 2018
This is an excellent book that recounts in a clear and, for the most part, dispassionate manner, the events leading to the lynching of three blacks in Duluth in 1920.
The author does a good job of describing how the mob was formed and the racism that was present in all parts of Duluth. The author uses first hand accounts, interview, and newspaper accounts to tell what happened, hour by hour, in Duluth.
The author argues that racism had been inflamed by the war--when whites observed black soldiers in France having white girlfriends, had been inflamed by manufacturers bringing in blacks to break strikes, and by the willingness of many whites to believe that blacks were morally degenerate.
There were a few police officers who tried to stop by lynching. There is a good chance that had police officers responded with more force, including using their weapons, that the lynchings would have been prevented. But the role racism played was prevalent here with some white officers not wishing to hurt other whites to protect blacks.
Even the people trying to prevent the lynchings were explicit in their belief that the accused had committed a heinous crime.
What is striking is that after the lynchings a clearly innocent black man was convicted of rape, in a trial in which an all white jury responded to strong racist appeals from the prosecutor.
The whites in Duluth that tried to prevent the lynchings and denounced the lynchings were shunned by other whites and lost positions because of their actions.
According to the author the St. Louis Historical Society had no information about the lynchings, wishing to hide this part of Duluth's history.
While the author for the most part avoids editorial comments and presents the story in a straightforward (and for that reason it is even more horrifying) manner there are some comments that appear to be questionable. For example, a few times he asserts, with no proof, that some of the people involved in the lynching felt shame later. Where did he draw this conclusion from?
The author does a good job of describing how the mob was formed and the racism that was present in all parts of Duluth. The author uses first hand accounts, interview, and newspaper accounts to tell what happened, hour by hour, in Duluth.
The author argues that racism had been inflamed by the war--when whites observed black soldiers in France having white girlfriends, had been inflamed by manufacturers bringing in blacks to break strikes, and by the willingness of many whites to believe that blacks were morally degenerate.
There were a few police officers who tried to stop by lynching. There is a good chance that had police officers responded with more force, including using their weapons, that the lynchings would have been prevented. But the role racism played was prevalent here with some white officers not wishing to hurt other whites to protect blacks.
Even the people trying to prevent the lynchings were explicit in their belief that the accused had committed a heinous crime.
What is striking is that after the lynchings a clearly innocent black man was convicted of rape, in a trial in which an all white jury responded to strong racist appeals from the prosecutor.
The whites in Duluth that tried to prevent the lynchings and denounced the lynchings were shunned by other whites and lost positions because of their actions.
According to the author the St. Louis Historical Society had no information about the lynchings, wishing to hide this part of Duluth's history.
While the author for the most part avoids editorial comments and presents the story in a straightforward (and for that reason it is even more horrifying) manner there are some comments that appear to be questionable. For example, a few times he asserts, with no proof, that some of the people involved in the lynching felt shame later. Where did he draw this conclusion from?
June 12, 2017
A fascinating telling of one of Duluth's most shameful moments, in which a mob of thousands overtakes a police station and lynches three black men who have been arrested on charges of raping a local white woman.
I grew up in Duluth, but my family wasn't from the area. Nevertheless, my white parents and teachers adopted the same "we don't talk about that" attitude towards the lynchings that the locals did. In the early 2000s (2003?) a memorial was put up on the spot of the lynchings, and I remember my twelve-year-old self being frustrated with the lack of details about the incident I was able to gain.
This book was exactly what I wished for as a twelve-year-old. The story is told in an incredibly digestible chronological format-- it begins by describing the social and historical context in which the lynchings happened, the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape, the police investigation, the later tensions and rumblings in West Duluth, the leadup to the riot, the struggle by the police to hold the station during the riot, the actual lynching, and the fallout. As a lawyer, the legal fallout (criminal charges against the rioters and the surviving black suspects) was particularly fascinating to me.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in Northern race-relations or in the history of Duluth. Things that might bother you in this book (they startled me): frequent use of the n-word and consistently referencing "Blacks" and "Whites."
I grew up in Duluth, but my family wasn't from the area. Nevertheless, my white parents and teachers adopted the same "we don't talk about that" attitude towards the lynchings that the locals did. In the early 2000s (2003?) a memorial was put up on the spot of the lynchings, and I remember my twelve-year-old self being frustrated with the lack of details about the incident I was able to gain.
This book was exactly what I wished for as a twelve-year-old. The story is told in an incredibly digestible chronological format-- it begins by describing the social and historical context in which the lynchings happened, the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape, the police investigation, the later tensions and rumblings in West Duluth, the leadup to the riot, the struggle by the police to hold the station during the riot, the actual lynching, and the fallout. As a lawyer, the legal fallout (criminal charges against the rioters and the surviving black suspects) was particularly fascinating to me.
I'd recommend this to anyone interested in Northern race-relations or in the history of Duluth. Things that might bother you in this book (they startled me): frequent use of the n-word and consistently referencing "Blacks" and "Whites."
Read
June 18, 2020This is a terrible but riveting book about an awful act of racism that took place in Duluth in 1920. Fedo is a former journalist who uses a combination of eye witness accounts, news paper accounts, and court records to tell this story in a clear and thoughtful way. Six young black men, visiting Duluth with the circus, were accused of rape. They were arrested and even though the events that took place were unclear and a Drs exam found no evidence of rape, a mob of between 5 and 10,000 people formed outside the jail. The mod eventually broke into the jail and took 3 of the young men to a sham of a trial followed by their executions. How this could happen and why are questions that Fedo put much thought into. He tell the story as I said very clearly but he also does a good job of honoring the differences in social and racial attitudes without coming across as arrogant or self righteously judging those people in mob. Misinformation and negative social attitudes lead to a horrifying event that, strangely, many people have never heard of. I recommend this book to other CTEP members because I find it’s very useful to not only consider current cultural attitudes and stereotypes but to also consider the past as we navigate the sometimes delicate world of social services.
February 24, 2022
The Lynchings in Duluth by Michael W. Fedo tells the story of the lynching deaths of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie in Duluth, Minnesota in June 1920. People generally associate lynchings and other, racially-motivated, violent crimes against Black people, specifically Black men, with the Southern United States. If one has heard of the Duluth lynchings at all, it's likely because of their mention in a Bob Dylan song. Fedo explains in horrific detail how the Duluth lynchings followed the same lynching script as lynchings in the South. A must read for Duluthians and Minnesotans, The Lynchings in Duluth is a compelling read about racial violence in America that takes the reader chronologically through the incidents of June 15th, 1920.
A few things to note: the book, while historical non-fiction, does not contain footnotes and it is difficult to find exact sources for Fedo's work if you want to follow up. It is based on interviews, some of which are anonymous to protect ancestors of assailants, and primary source documents from local newspapers. As well, Fedo uses the term "Black" to refer to people; ie. "the Black did xyz" which is uncomfortable to read at times and doesn't represent contemporary vocabulary when discussing racial issues, although this is common in writing about this topic from this time.
A few things to note: the book, while historical non-fiction, does not contain footnotes and it is difficult to find exact sources for Fedo's work if you want to follow up. It is based on interviews, some of which are anonymous to protect ancestors of assailants, and primary source documents from local newspapers. As well, Fedo uses the term "Black" to refer to people; ie. "the Black did xyz" which is uncomfortable to read at times and doesn't represent contemporary vocabulary when discussing racial issues, although this is common in writing about this topic from this time.
March 1, 2017
I am a life-long Minnesota resident, yet I'd never heard about the Duluth lynchings of 1920 until I moved to Duluth a year ago. I now live across the street from the former jail and a block away from the lynching site, now the Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial, dedicated in 2003. I attended the annual memorial at the site last year and began to learn more about the lynchings from other community members. Still, it wasn't until I read Michael Fedo's book that it truly hit home in all its harshness and brutality. The raw emotions of the mob mentality jarred me to my core. I could almost feel the pounding hearts of the accused men as they sat locked in their cells, listening to the growing crowds demanding them to be handed over, breaking thru the doors and walls in their urgency to mete out justice on their terms. I've traced the footsteps from the former jail to the lynching site several times over, each time with a renewed personal dedication to justice and equality. This is a book that should be required reading in every Minnesota school history class.
June 29, 2019
This is a fascinating study in banned books. No book should be banned, of course, but it’s uncomfortable ones like this that give pause. There certainly are parts in the first half that could be misconstrued by bigots as an homage to the old days.
Fedo’s narrative style plays into this. It’s both engaging and thrusts the reader into the situation. With the lenses of time past, a lesser writer would paint the story where the reader would be able to puff out her chest and believe they would do things differently. But Fedo is unflinching and crams a lot into the sparse 180 pages.
This is an important book, not only for Minnesotans but for everybody who believes we live in more enlightened times. It also is one of the only books that makes the use of technology and monitoring social media seem like a good thing.
Fedo’s narrative style plays into this. It’s both engaging and thrusts the reader into the situation. With the lenses of time past, a lesser writer would paint the story where the reader would be able to puff out her chest and believe they would do things differently. But Fedo is unflinching and crams a lot into the sparse 180 pages.
This is an important book, not only for Minnesotans but for everybody who believes we live in more enlightened times. It also is one of the only books that makes the use of technology and monitoring social media seem like a good thing.
November 30, 2019
Great book, sad sad story. The author did a good job of sharing facts in the way of a story and backing up the story he presented with research and how he collected his information. A piece of history that’s been neglected and ignored yet so important to be remembered
February 22, 2020
Important history on an ugly period of Duluthian history. Terrible episode of the racicism that exists in hearts of men. While much progress has been made, it seems much of these underlying prejudices are still there.
September 1, 2018
Who would of thought lynchings happened this far north? An interesting and enlightening book about a shameful event in the city.
November 17, 2018
Chilling, especially when you've walked in and can therefore vividly imagine all the places and scenes in the book.
September 27, 2020
A very sad book. Recommended to everyone because honestly, this is the type of story we need to hear.
October 15, 2022
I had a hard time reading this book. The writing style was not good in my opinion. I started reading several times but just couldn’t finish it.
November 29, 2024
Very interesting. Not a subject taught in Duluth schools or not even talked about, until recently when the memorial was created. A difficult but good read.
April 17, 2025
Every Duluthian needs to read this incredibly well-researched book, then visit the memorial on 1st Street for Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, and Elias Clayton.
January 3, 2017
This book is a narrative timeline of the 1920 mob lynching of 3 black men who were among a handful of men suspected of raping a white west Duluth woman...HIPPA wasn't a thing then and the "victim's" Doctor went around telling people there wasn't evidence of an assault.
"No matter what happened he had to accept some major responsibilities for this evening. But Duluth was a White city and he'd been elected by white voters who would go to the polls again next year. Tracy persisted, "did you give that order Mr. Murnian?" ..."I do not want to see the blood of one white person spilled for six blacks." Basically that sums up what is wrong with politicians. Murnian, this inept politician would be reelected despite investigations declaring him inept in his duty.
Fedo notes here were already tensions in Duluth by blacks and whites due to a factory strike. To circumvent the strike the factory brought black men from the south north to work in their factory and avoid the increased wage. That and WWI veteran tension is mentioned. Fedo notes the men wanted a purpose again. And also, that they had been outraged overseas by black men who slept with white French prostitutes.
It disgusts me that something like this happened. What disgusts me more is this corner of the world is one I call my own. Reading about one of the skeletons in my homes closet is unsettling. The stupidity of large groups of people never fails to shock me.
I'm headed home later this week. I intend to re-go to the sculpture of the real victims and to visit their now marked graves (I guess until 1992 they'd been left unmarked
"No matter what happened he had to accept some major responsibilities for this evening. But Duluth was a White city and he'd been elected by white voters who would go to the polls again next year. Tracy persisted, "did you give that order Mr. Murnian?" ..."I do not want to see the blood of one white person spilled for six blacks." Basically that sums up what is wrong with politicians. Murnian, this inept politician would be reelected despite investigations declaring him inept in his duty.
Fedo notes here were already tensions in Duluth by blacks and whites due to a factory strike. To circumvent the strike the factory brought black men from the south north to work in their factory and avoid the increased wage. That and WWI veteran tension is mentioned. Fedo notes the men wanted a purpose again. And also, that they had been outraged overseas by black men who slept with white French prostitutes.
It disgusts me that something like this happened. What disgusts me more is this corner of the world is one I call my own. Reading about one of the skeletons in my homes closet is unsettling. The stupidity of large groups of people never fails to shock me.
I'm headed home later this week. I intend to re-go to the sculpture of the real victims and to visit their now marked graves (I guess until 1992 they'd been left unmarked
March 2, 2008
This book is a true story about an Upper-Midwestern town talking the law into their own hands. A mob of about 10,000 white people wanted to lynch a bunch of black circus workers who were accused of raping a white girl; it was later found out that she made up the rape story. The police had no experience whatsoever on handling the angry mob. The police were given orders not to shoot anyone. Three innocent people were dragged out of their jail cells and brutally murdered in the streets of Duluth, Minnesota in 1920. The State of Minnesota wanted to erase this crime from its history books. We read this book in English class about a week ago in college.
November 27, 2011
This detailed look at a lynching in 1921 in Duluth, Minnesota is horrifying. The cover photo is a crowd of white folk. On the inside, you see it is part of a larger picture, taken during the lynching! The white folk, posing (proudly) for the picture, are standing around three dead black youth! The book says this picture was sold as a postcard at local businesses after the event. The level of injustice throughout is stunning. The boys were lynched for what is probably a made-up story about a rape. Other blacks not lynched were sent to jail after evidence was ignored or not brought to light. Yes, this stuff happened in Minnesota, too.
October 6, 2013
In seeking truth, we must swim in the cesspool of our collective bigotry, hatred, and racism to uncover the depths we have gone, are going, and will go toward dehumanization of life. Read this book if you can stomach horrific acts that were hidden from history much like what is going on today, i.e. waterboarding, torture, executions without trial. History is ever bound to repeat herself.
December 29, 2015
This book was a requirement for my history of Minnesota class, and very much the best topic we discussed. The book is incredibly powerful and tremendously heartbreaking. It was very well written and researched and was easy material to read although the subject matter was not. But I would recommend this book to anyone!
December 25, 2007
Very detailed account of the events leading up to and surrounding the Duluth lynchings. I would have loved more investigation of the psyches, experiences and perspectives of the Black people involved, but other than that, I thought he did a fabulous job.
May 4, 2012
If I hadn't had to read this for school, I never would have picked it up. The only reason I gave it two stars was because I thought it was interesting to learn about something that happened where I live.
It's a sad book that makes you doubt humanity. Ewwwww
It's a sad book that makes you doubt humanity. Ewwwww
Read
August 16, 2017I read this for school. It’s a fine book. The subject matter is something I would never normally read, and the book is quite graphic at parts. The writing tries to be a narrative, but there is so much info dumping that it still reads like a non-fiction and gets tedious at the end.
August 15, 2022
If you live in MN you need to read this book. Minnesota Nice is not always nice. The undercurrent of racism that is still preset runs closer to the surface is this chilling account of how three men were murdered based on a rumor.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews