DULUTH, Minn. — 101 years ago today, a mob of thousands stormed into a Duluth jail cell and tortured, dragged and hanged three Black men – Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie.
“There is a history of violence in our country that we haven’t addressed,” says Kevin Lindsey, with the Minnesota Humanities Center.
Lindsey is the CEO of the Minnesota Humanities Center. The organization recently held an event along with the Collaborative Legal Community Coalition – to discuss the history while commemorating the anniversary of this tragic piece of Minnesota history.
“I’d like to thank the folks at the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie memorial for keeping the story alive,” he says. “It’s impossible to remain silent and if you go up to Duluth you will see those words.”
The three men, who were circus workers, were wrongfully accused of raping a white woman more than a century ago.
“The individuals who engaged in the lynching, stood by and allowed people to take their photographs, and that became a postcard,” he says. “The idea of this just being a small number of rogue people is not accurate.”
Max Mason, who was also wrongfully convicted in the alleged rape, was paroled four years later and applied for pardon many times. “During his lifetime, Max Mason twice sought to get his conviction overturned,” he says. “If you do the reading on his life, you’ll know that this weighed on him heavily.”
But in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd – that sparked a movement for change – the Minnesota Board of Pardons unanimously voted to grant the state's first posthumous pardon to Mason.
“This motion was brought up by Jerry Blackwell on behalf of Max Mason,” he says.
While organizations like Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Inc. and the Equal Justice Initiative are working to keep the memory of the men alive, he hopes the memory of what happened continues to spark change.
“Hopefully, out of the painful period we’ve gone trough with the death of George Floyd, we’ll emerge on the other side,” he says.
Last year, Governor Walz also proclaimed June 15 as Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie Commemoration Day.