DULUTH, Minnesota — It's been 100 years since a mob in Duluth lynched three Black men, wrongfully accused of a crime.
Monday, Governor Tim Walz visited their memorial and said there's a direct line from the lynchings to George Floyd's death.
"That inability to deal with that, led to what happened down there. And if we don't see those connections, then we don't do tribute to their families," Gov. Walz said.
On June 15, 1920, a mob lynched Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie. The three men, who were circus workers, were wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, "In the early morning of June 15th, Duluth Police Chief John Murphy received a call from James Sullivan's father saying six black circus workers had held the pair at gunpoint and then raped Irene Tusken. Little evidence would be found to corroborate these claims."
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Max Mason was the only man convicted in the alleged rape. He was paroled four years later and applied for pardon many times. Last Friday, the Minnesota Board of Pardons unanimously voted to grant the state's first posthumous pardon to Mason.
Minneapolis attorney Jerry Blackwell worked hard to help make it happen. At the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Blackwell mentioned how it's estimated that 10,000 people watched as the three men were lynched.
"Silent complicity was then, and is now, the enemy of racial equality," Blackwell said.
After Gov. Walz visited the memorial with his family, he met with a group of Duluth residents to talk about police reform and accountability. The meeting was closed to the press.
"We are going to be defined either by the murder of George Floyd or by how we respond to the murder of George Floyd," said Gov. Walz after the meeting.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison also visited Duluth on Monday and said, "Today as we honor and memorialize Clayton, Jackson, McGhie, we have to solemnly dedicate ourselves to the simple idea that a human being is a human being and must be given the dignity and respect of a human being in our time, so help us God."
Governor Walz also proclaimed June 15, 2020 as Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie Commemoration Day.