'It Bleeds Into The Moment We Are In': June Marks 100-Year Anniversary Of Lynching Of 3 Black Men In Duluth
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A group of judges and community leaders are working to commemorate a part of Minnesota history that many don't speak about and some don't even know about.
Three African American circus workers were lynched in Duluth without a trial or any sort of legal process.
Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie are remembered with the first memorial to a lynching in this country.
Big plans are in the works to bring a part of that memorial here.
The story of the lynching of three black men in Duluth made headlines in June of 1920.
Back then and now it's considered a horrific stain on the city.
"A new museum down in Alabama has done a great job of really telling the stories of race relations and this tragic story of lynching that occurred all across the county and Minnesota is part of that story we need to tell it," Kevin Maijala said.
Minnesota Historical Society's Kevin Maijala is talking about the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.
A museum dedicated to the legacy of enslaved black people and those terrorized by lynching.
Names of the more than 4,400 blacks lynched from 1877 to 1950 are engraved on duplicate sets of columns, two for each county where a lynching was documented.
The Duluth lynchings are included and the museum allows those counties to claim the duplicate column and install them at the original lynching site.
"10,000 people went out to witness the Duluth lynching," Attorney General Keith Ellison said.
Attorney General Keith Ellison went to Alabama to see the memorial to make sure Minnesotans will have the opportunity to deal with our past, by bringing the duplicate column to Duluth.
"It bleeds into the moment that we are in right now, the only way to heal is to recognize that, " Ellison said.
Ellison says Minnesotans must acknowledge this painful part of our past in order to ensure future generations don't repeat the mistakes that were made.
"The pain associated with it has not been healed and its reflected in the disparities its reflected in the over incarceration rate," Ellison said. "We're trying to be a more perfect union, were trying to hear, were trying to better than we were."
Duluth will commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the lynchings in June.
Minnesota judges working with the Collaborative Legal Community Coalition are trying to develop curriculum about the Duluth lynchings that would be available to school kids in the fall.
