The Lynchings in Duluth

The Lynchings in Duluth
Author: Michael Fedo
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2016-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1681340143

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. Yet for years the incident was nearly forgotten. This updated, second edition of The Lynchings in Duluth includes a new preface by the author, additional research and notes, and suggestions for further reading. “This account of racial violence in the early twentieth century is a genuinely startling and illuminating contribution to our understanding of racial justice in the United States in the twenty-first. Many Americans have found it convenient to think that episodes like this come only from the Jim Crow–era Deep South. The Lynchings in Duluth is a powerful reminder of the broader American pattern.” James Fallows, The Atlantic “A chilling reconstruction of a 1920 racial tragedy. . . . Combining hour-by-hour, day-by-day narrative with expert scholarship based on interviews, suppressed documents and news reports, Fedo skillfully portrays Northern prejudice and violence.” Los Angeles Times “This tense book punches out a story of devastating fury. . . . As pointed as a Klansman’s cap, this book conveys the horror of mob action—and the disturbing truth that it knows no region.” Milwaukee Journal

The Lynchings in Duluth

The Lynchings in Duluth
Author: Michael W. Fedo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781681340135

Using newspaper accounts, court records, state files, and interviews with aging and often reluctant witnesses, Michael Fedo writes of ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary moment of violence and hatred.

The Lyncher in Me

The Lyncher in Me
Author: Warren Read
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2008-10-14
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0873516834

"In his memoir, Read explores the perspectives of both the victims and the perpetrators of this heinous crime. He investigates the impact - the denial and anger - that the long-held secrets has on his family. Through this examination of the generations affected by one horrific night, he discovers we must each take responsibility for "our deep-seated fears that lead us to emotional, social, or physical violence.""--BOOK JACKET.

Morgan Park

Morgan Park
Author: Arnold Robert Alanen
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 367
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 1452913404

From 1915 to 1971 the large U.S. Steel plant was a major part of Duluth’s landscape and life. Just as important was Morgan Park—an innovatively planned and close-knit community constructed for the plant’s employees and their families. In this new book Arnold R. Alanen brings to life Morgan Park, the formerly company-controlled town that now stands as a city neighborhood, and the U.S. Steel plant for which it was built. Planned by renowned landscape architects, architects, and engineers, and provided with schools, churches, and recreational and medical services by U.S. Steel, Morgan Park is an iconic example—like Lowell, Massachusetts, and Pullman, Illinois—of a twentieth-century company town, as well as a window into northeastern Minnesota’s industrial roots. Starting with the intense political debates that preceded U.S. Steel’s decision to build a plant in Duluth, Morgan Park follows the town and its residents through the boom years to the closing of the outmoded facility—an event that foreshadowed industrial shutdowns elsewhere in the United States—and up to today, as current residents work to preserve the community’s historic character. Through compelling archival and contemporary photographs and vibrant stories of a community built of concrete and strong as steel, Alanen shows the impact both the plant and Morgan Park have had on life in Duluth. Arnold R. Alanen is professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His previous books include Main Street Ready-Made: The New Deal Community of Greendale, Wisconsin and Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America.

Legacy of Violence

Legacy of Violence
Author: John D. Bessler
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2003
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816638109

"The first comprehensive history of lynchings and state-sanctioned executions in Minnesota. Minnesota is one of only twelve states that does not allow the death penalty, but that was not always the case. In fact, until 1911 executions in the state were legal and frequently carried out. In Legacy of Violence, John D. Bessler takes us on a compelling journey through the history of lynchings and state-sanctioned executions that dramatically shaped Minnesota's past." "Through personal accounts of those involved with the events, Bessler traces the history of both famous and lesser-known executions and lynchings in Minnesota, the state's anti-death penalty and anti-lynching movements, and the role of the media in the death penalty debate. Bessler reveals Abraham Lincoln' thoughts as he ordered the largest mass execution in U. S. history of thirty-eight Indians in Mankato after the Dakota Conflict of 1862. He recounts the events surrounding the death of Ann Bilansky, the only woman ever executed in Minnesota, and the infamous botched hanging of William Williams, which led to renewed calls for the abolition of capital punishment. He tells the story of the 1920 lynching in Duluth of three African-Americans circus workers - wrongfully accused of rape - and the anti-lynching crusade that followed. The significant role that Minnesota played in America's transformation to private, after-dark executions is presented in the discussion of the "midnight assassination law."" "Bessler's account is made more timely by thirty-five hundred people on death row in America today - more than at any other time in our nation's history. Is Minnesota's current approach superior to that of states that have capital punishment? Bessler looks at Minnesota history to ask whether the application of the death penalty can truly solve the problem of violence in America."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Cruelty Is the Point

The Cruelty Is the Point
Author: Adam Serwer
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2021-06-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0593230809

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From an award-winning journalist at The Atlantic, these searing essays make a powerful case that “real hope lies not in a sunny nostalgia for American greatness but in seeing this history plain—in all of its brutality, unadorned by euphemism” (The New York Times). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • “No writer better demonstrates how American dreams are so often sabotaged by American history. Adam Serwer is essential.”—Ta-Nehisi Coates To many, our most shocking political crises appear unprecedented—un-American, even. But they are not, writes The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer in this prescient essay collection, which dissects the most devastating moments in recent memory to reveal deeply entrenched dynamics, patterns as old as the country itself. The January 6 insurrection, anti-immigrant sentiment, and American authoritarianism all have historic roots that explain their continued power with or without President Donald Trump—a fact borne out by what has happened since his departure from the White House. Serwer argues that Trump is not the cause, he is a symptom. Serwer’s phrase “the cruelty is the point” became among the most-used descriptions of Trump’s era, but as this book demonstrates, it resonates across centuries. The essays here combine revelatory reporting, searing analysis, and a clarity that’s bracing. In this new, expanded version of his bestselling debut, Serwer elegantly dissects white supremacy’s profound influence on our political system, looking at the persistence of the Lost Cause, the past and present of police unions, the mythology of migration, and the many faces of anti-Semitism. In so doing, he offers abundant proof that our past is present and demonstrates the devastating costs of continuing to pretend it’s not. The Cruelty Is the Point dares us, the reader, to not look away.

The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota

The Ku Klux Klan in Minnesota
Author: Elizabeth Dorsey Hatle
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2013-09-17
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 1625846479

Minnesota might not seem like an obvious place to look for traces of Ku Klux Klan parade grounds, but this northern state was once home to fifty-one chapters of the KKK. Elizabeth Hatle tracks down the history of the Klan in Minnesota, beginning with the racially charged atmosphere that produced the tragic 1920 Duluth lynchings. She measures the influence the organization wielded at the peak of its prominence within state politics and tenaciously follows the careers of the Klansmen who continued life in the public sphere after the Hooded Order lost its foothold in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.

"They was Just Niggers"

Author: Michael W. Fedo
Publisher:
Total Pages: 189
Release: 1979-01-01
Genre: Lynching
ISBN: 9780895540089

"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."--BOOK JACKET.

Without Sanctuary

Without Sanctuary
Author: James Allen
Publisher: Twin Palms Publishers
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780944092699

Gruesome photographs document the victims of lynchings and the society that allowed mob violence.

At the Hands of Persons Unknown

At the Hands of Persons Unknown
Author: Philip Dray
Publisher: Modern Library
Total Pages: 554
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307430669

WINNER OF THE SOUTHERN BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR NONFICTION • “A landmark work of unflinching scholarship.”—The New York Times This extraordinary account of lynching in America, by acclaimed civil rights historian Philip Dray, shines a clear, bright light on American history’s darkest stain—illuminating its causes, perpetrators, apologists, and victims. Philip Dray also tells the story of the men and women who led the long and difficult fight to expose and eradicate lynching, including Ida B. Wells, James Weldon Johnson, Walter White, and W.E.B. Du Bois. If lynching is emblematic of what is worst about America, their fight may stand for what is best: the commitment to justice and fairness and the conviction that one individual’s sense of right can suffice to defy the gravest of wrongs. This landmark book follows the trajectory of both forces over American history—and makes lynching’s legacy belong to us all. Praise for At the Hands of Persons Unknown “In this history of lynching in the post-Reconstruction South—the most comprehensive of its kind—the author has written what amounts to a Black Book of American race relations.”—The New Yorker “A powerfully written, admirably perceptive synthesis of the vast literature on lynching. It is the most comprehensive social history of this shameful subject in almost seventy years and should be recognized as a major addition to the bibliography of American race relations.”—David Levering Lewis “An important and courageous book, well written, meticulously researched, and carefully argued.”—The Boston Globe “You don’t really know what lynching was until you read Dray’s ghastly accounts of public butchery and official complicity.”—Time