The Duluth Lynchings

Forum Communications Co.•www.duluthnewstribune.com

In this series, we will look back at one of Duluth, Minnesota’s dark moments in history, a time when an estimated 10,000 people participated in or were witness to a hate crime — then basically didn’t talk about it again publicly for more than 60 years. The Duluth Lynchings is produced by the Duluth News Tribune's Christa Lawler and Samantha Erkkila, with reporting by our newsroom staff. Music "We Three Kings" is composed by Jean “Rudy” Perrault and performed by the Gichigami Piano Trio. *A warning to listeners: Some episodes might have unsettling imagery or language.

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Episodes

6. 'Walk with me'

Three to four times a year, the city’s human rights officer Carl Crawford offers a Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial tour that starts in downtown Duluth near the site of the old jail and ends at the spot where the men were killed by a lynch mob. While Minnesotans were sheltering in place, Crawford offered his tour virtually. “I want you to walk with me,” he says at the start. “I want you to close your eyes and open your hearts. I want you to go back when you had your first job. Your first experien...

Jun 15, 2020•26 min

5. 'We have a lot of work to do'

In the post-lynching period, Duluth’s already small number of African Americans grew smaller — and has never grown to more than 3 percent of the city’s population. Jeanine Weekes Schroer, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota Duluth called Duluth a “sundown town” — a place where its lack of diversity seems accidental, but can be tied to historic events. While creating this podcast, multiple racially-motivated events happened in the United States — and as close as Mi...

Jun 11, 2020•36 min

4. 'It was just gone'

In the decades following the lynching deaths of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie, no one really talked about it. Then Michael Fedo, a Duluth native, started writing a novel set in Northern Minnesota in the years following World War I. He recalled that his mother had once mentioned the lynchings, but the details and context of the conversation were gone. Fedo began digging and found not just silence, but in some cases a concerted effort to suppress details about the events of June 15...

Jun 04, 2020•30 min

3. 'The past isn't the past'

Duluth’s police chief Mike Tusken was working a patrol shift about 20 years ago when his mother called him with news: A decades old family secret was about to be made public. It was his great aunt, Irene Tusken — whose name had long been kept out of the public record — who was behind the rape allegations that led to the Duluth lynchings. He’s not the only person to be surprised with the news that a beloved relative was a part of Duluth’s darkest day — and he’s not the only one to talk publicly a...

May 28, 2020•26 min

2. June 15, 1920

On June 14, 1920, two Duluth teens claimed that they were held at gunpoint and assaulted by black workers from the John Robinson Circus. Word and aggression spread — helped along by a headline in the Duluth Herald — culminating in the lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie in front of an estimated 10,000 people the following evening. Later it would be revealed that there was no evidence to indicate Irene Tusken had been raped. Journalist Jim Heffernan offers his mother and fat...

May 21, 2020•22 min

1. 'The Circus is Here'

Duluth, Minnesota has had booming periods of greatness and times when it looked like the whole city might be canceled. Tony Dierckins, an author who has written extensively about Duluth’s history, sets the scene for the state of the city going into the 1920 lynchings of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie. Heidi Bakk-Hansen, a writer and activist, puts it into context considering the race riots of the previous year, dubbed Red Summer. Duluth might have been primed for a major racial ev...

May 14, 2020•24 min

Trailer: The Duluth Lynchings

On June 15, 1920, three black circus workers, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie, were wrongfully accused of sexual assault and murdered by a mob. In this six-part series, we will look back at one of Duluth, Minnesota’s dark moments in history, a time when an estimated 10,000 people participated in or were witness to a hate crime — then didn’t talk about it again publicly for more than 60 years. The Duluth Lynchings is produced by the Duluth News Tribune's Christa Lawler and Samantha ...

May 05, 2020•5 min

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