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Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Duluth

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Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial

Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial in Duluth, at the corner of North Second Avenue and East First Street. Photograph by Flickr user artstuffmatters, June 17, 2020. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

On June 15, 1920, a mob of 10,000 people oversaw the lynching of three African American circus workers falsely accused of rape in downtown Duluth. In the face of community silence after the event, the lynchings faded from public memory. Efforts to acknowledge the lynchings, remember the victims, and begin community healing led to the identification of the three workers’ graves in 1991 and the creation of a memorial plaza in Duluth in 2003.

The Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, located at East First Street and North Second Avenue East in Duluth, recalls the victims of the lynchings of June 15, 1920. Angered at the reported rape of a local white woman, a mob of white people seized traveling circus workers Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie from the city jail. After a mock trial, the mob hung the three men from a lamppost in downtown Duluth. Officials buried their bodies in unmarked graves at a local cemetery. Three of the approximately 10,000 participants received rioting convictions; no one ever stood trial for the murders.

The Duluth lynchings took place during an era of white supremacy, legal discrimination, and extreme violence against people of color. According to the Equal Justice Institute (EJI), there were 4,084 documented lynchings of African Americans in the South between 1877 and 1950, with an additional 341 occurring in Northern states. Although ten-year averages for lynchings dropped steadily between 1890 and 1930, advocates of white supremacy rigorously enforced Jim Crow and miscegenation laws and turned the Ku Klux Klan into a national movement.

The Duluth lynchings made national headlines but, in time, the event gradually disappeared from public memory. Those few who still remembered, wrote historian William D. Green, “treat it, like all dirty little secrets, as something best left unspoken.”

In 1979, local author Michael Fedo shed light on Duluth’s “dirty little secret” with a detailed history of the lynchings. Reprinted in 1993 as The Lynchings in Duluth, Fedo’s history restored the all-but-forgotten murders to the public conscience.

Starting in 1990, local residents determined to keep the memories alive began holding “Day of Remembrance” vigils at the lynching site. The following year, University of Minnesota Duluth professor Craig Grau located the gravesites of Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie. The Duluth chapter of the NAACP sponsored the installation of new headstones in October 1991. In addition to the victims’ names, dates of birth, and dates of death, each stone displayed the phrase, “Deterred But Not Defeated.”

Annual vigils continued through the 1990s, as residents considered other ways to remember the victims. In 2000, local reporter Heidi Bakk-Hansen and Henry Banks, the leader of a Duluth family resource center, co-founded a grassroots group to install a memorial plaque. The group evolved into the CJM (Clayton Jackson McGhie) Memorial Board, a nonprofit dedicated to awarding scholarships to high school seniors in the Duluth/Superior region and teaching the public about the lynchings.

Together with the City of Duluth Public Arts Commission, the board requested proposals for a memorial near the lynching site. The memorial, the board hoped, would inspire public discussions and foster community healing. In February 2003, the commission awarded the project to local artist Carla Stetson and writer Anthony Peyton Porter. Officials broke ground the following May.

Using local high school students as models, Stetson created a life-size sculpture that celebrated Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie as individuals. “[W]hen the young men were lynched, they were depersonalized," she said. "The idea of them being individual people with real feelings and their life in front of them—all of that was taken away." Stetson’s design placed the sculptures along an open plaza, surrounded by quotes from poets, philosophers, and civil rights activists. The plaza was finished in October 2003 at a cost of $267,000.

The plaza became the focal point for both centennial remembrances and public protests in 2020. On May 31, unknown vandals spray painted anti-police messages in the plaza in the wake of the killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd while in police custody. Just two weeks later, more than 1,000 people, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, attended a memorial at the site on June 15.

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Associated Press. “Ceremonies Planned for Lynching Victims.” Salina Journal (Salina, Kansas), September 30, 1991.

——— . “Lynching Victims Remembered.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 27, 1991.

Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Inc. Creation of the Memorial.
http://www.claytonjacksonmcghie.org/CreationMemorial

Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation. Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Scholarship Fund.
https://www.dsacommunityfoundation.org/clayton-jackson-mcghie-memorial-scholarship-fund?tt=0

Equal Justice Initiative. “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror,” 2017.
https://eji.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/lynching-in-america-3d-ed-091620.pdf

Fedo, Michael. The Lynchings in Duluth. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2000; Brasch and Brasch, 1979.

Julin, Chris. “Set Up For Dedication of Lynching Memorial.” Minnesota Public Radio, October 10, 2003.
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2003/10/10/set-dedication-lynching-memorial

Kelleher, Bob. "Lynching Memorial." Minnesota Public Radio, June 9, 2003.
https://archive.mpr.org/stories/2003/06/09/lynching-memorial

Kraker, Dan. “‘We Never Solved the Problem’: Echoes of 1920 Duluth Lynching Persist at Centennial.” MPRNews, June 15, 2020.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/06/15/we-never-solved-the-problem-echoes-of-1920-duluth-lynching-persist-as-city-marks-centennial

Lawler, Christa. “‘Very Powerful’: Duluth Lynching Anniversary Draws Crowd to Memorial.” Duluth News Tribune, June 15, 2020.
https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/6531748-Very-powerful-Duluth-lynching-anniversary-draws-crowd-to-memorial

Lundy, John. “Model for Duluth Sculpture Reflects.” Bismarck Tribune, June 13, 2010.

Meryhew, Richard. “Duluth Confronts an Ugly Event.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 11, 2003.

Oakes, Larry. “A Lynching in Duluth: Residents Taking Steps to Heal 71-Year-Old Wounds.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, October 26, 1991.

Rahman, Arman. “Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Vandalized During Protests; Duluth NAACP Pres. Reacts.” Fox 21, May 31, 2020.
https://www.fox21online.com/2020/05/31/clayton-jackson-mcghie-memorial-vandalized-during-protests-duluth-naacp-pres-reacts

Read, Warren. The Lyncher in Me: A Search for Redemption in the Face of History. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2018.

———. “The text of my speech, presented at the 2003 unveiling of the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial.” October 2003.
http://www.warren-read.com/the_lyncher_in_me

“Walz Visits Clayton-Jackson-McGhie Memorial in Duluth, Urges Action to Create Change.” KTSP.com, June 15, 2020.
https://kstp.com/minnesota-news/walz-visits-clayton-jackson-mcghie-memorial-in-duluth-urges-action-to-create-change-june-15-2020/5760372

Weston, Alonzo. “St. Joe Native Plays Part in Raising Awareness of Horrendous Lynching.” St. Joseph News-Press (St. Joseph, Missouri), October 8, 2003.

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Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial text
Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial text

Turning Point

The 2003 dedication ceremony of the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial marks Duluth’s public acknowledgment of a horrific event in local history.

Chronology

1920

As many as 10,000 Duluth residents participate in the lynching of three African Amerian circus workers—Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie—on June 15. City officials bury the three men in unmarked graves at Duluth’s Park Hill Cemetery.

1930–1970s

Active suppression leads to a gradual erasure of the lynching from public memory.

1979

Author Michael Fedo breaks community silence by publishing the first in-depth account of the Duluth lynchings.

1990

A small group of community members observes the seventieth anniversary of the lynchings with a vigil at the lynching site in downtown Duluth.

1991

University of Minnesota Duluth sociology professor Craig Grau locates the gravesites of Clayton, Jackson, and McGhie at Park Hill Cemetery. The Duluth chapter of the NAACP commissions new headstones to mark their gravesites in October.

2000

During an interview with a reporter for the Duluth Ripsaw, Washington Family Resource Center coordinator Henry Banks proposes a community effort to memorialize the lynching victims.

2001

A grassroots committee, later named the CJM (Clayton Jackson McGhie) Memorial Board, organizes to raise public awareness, raise scholarship funds, and memorialize the lynching.

2002

The CJM Memorial Board and the Duluth Public Arts Commission authorize artist Carla Stetson and writer Anthony Peyton Porter to create a memorial plaza at a site adjacent to the lynchings.

2003

The public dedication of the Clayton Jackson McGhie memorial draws nearly 2,000.

May 2020

Reacting to the death of Minneapolis resident George Floyd in police custody, vandals spray paint anti-police messages on the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial.

June 2020

Peaceful protestors rally at the memorial on a nightly basis.

June 2020

More than 1,000 people attend ceremonies at the memorial site to commemorate the centennial of the Duluth lynchings and reflect on extralegal violence against African Americans.