Duluth lynchings

Duluth lynchings
Part of the Nadir of American race relations
Location	Duluth, Minnesota
Target	Six arrested suspects
Victims	Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie
Perpetrators	Mob (estimated 1,000 - 10,000 participants)
Motive	The alleged rape of Irene Tusken

Part of a series on the
Nadir of American race relations
Violence in the 1906 Atlanta race massacre
Historical background Reconstruction era Voter suppression Disfranchisement Redeemers Compromise of 1877 Jim Crow laws Segregation Anti-miscegenation laws Convict leasing
Practices Common actions Expulsions of African Americans Lynchings Lynching postcards Sundown town Whitecapping Vigilante groups Black Legion Indiana White Caps Ku Klux Klan Red Shirts
Lynchings Andrew Richards Michael Green Nevlin Porter and Johnson Spencer Eliza Woods Amos Miller George Meadows Joe Vermillion Jim Taylor Joe Coe People's Grocery Ephraim Grizzard Alfred Blount Samuel J. Bush Stephen Williams Frazier B. Baker and Julia Baker John Henry James Sam Hose George Ward David Wyatt Marie Thompson Watkinsville Ed Johnson William Burns Walker family Laura and L. D. Nelson King Johnson John Evans Jesse Washington Newberry Six Anthony Crawford Ell Persons Jim McIlherron George Taylor John Hartfield 1920 Duluth James Harvey and Joe Jordan Joe Pullen
Massacres and riots Opelousas massacre Rock Springs massacre Thibodaux massacre Spring Valley Race Riot of 1895 Phoenix election riot Wilmington insurrection of 1898 Pana riot Robert Charles riots Evansville race riot Atlanta Massacre of 1906 Springfield race riot of 1908 Johnson–Jeffries riots 1912 racial conflict in Forsyth County 1917 Chester race riot East St. Louis riots Elaine massacre Red Summer Chicago race riot of 1919 Washington race riot of 1919 Ocoee massacre Tulsa race massacre Perry race riot Rosewood massacre
Reactions Anti-lynching movement Exodusters movement Great Migration Back to Africa movement
Related topics Black genocide Civil rights movement (1865–1896) Civil rights movement (1896–1954) Mass racial violence in the United States
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On June 15, 1920, three African-American (Black) circus workers, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, suspects in an assault case, were taken from the jail and lynched by a White mob of thousands in Duluth, Minnesota. Rumors had circulated that six Black men had raped and robbed a nineteen-year-old White woman. A physician who examined her found no physical evidence of rape.

The 1920 lynchings are the only known instance of lynching of African-Americans in Minnesota. Twenty other lynchings were recorded in Minnesota, and included mainly Native Americans and Whites.^[1] Three men were convicted of rioting, but none served more than fifteen months. No one was ever prosecuted for the murders.

The state of Minnesota passed anti-lynching legislation in April 1921, and lynchings have not been recorded in Minnesota since.^[1] In 2003, the city of Duluth erected a memorial to the lynched men.^[2] In 2020, Max Mason, who was a co-worker in the same traveling circus as the three men who were lynched, was convicted in court after the lynchings, was granted the first posthumous pardon in the history of the state.^[3]