The Lynching of Edward Roach

On the afternoon of July 7th, 1920, Ed Roach was lynched by a mob of approximately 200 white terrorists. He was wrongly identified as the person who attempted to assault a young white girl. He was arrested and taken to jail. A mob gathered at the jail, brought him to…

Lest We Forget: Lynching at the Stewart Road Bridge

Near this place James T. Scott, a Black janitor in the medical school at MU, was killed on April 29th, 1923. A mob brought Mr. Scott to the bridge, placed a noose around his neck, and pushed him over the railing while hundreds of spectators watched. MU’s presence and the…

Lynching in America / Lynching in Duluth

On the night of June 15, 1920, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, three young African American men in their early 20’s, were lynched on this site by a mob of white Duluth residents. The three men were in town working with a traveling circus when two white teenagers…

Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial

On June 15, 1920, following the alleged rape of a young woman, Duluth police locked up a number of men who worked for a travelling circus. That evening, thousands of Duluthians gathered outside the city jail. The police were under orders not to shoot, and they obeyed. With timbers and…

Orange County Election Day Violence

Leading up to Election Day on November 2, 1920, the Ku Klux Klan and the United Confederate Veterans held rallies and parades to discourage African Americans from voting. County officials arranged for the local notary public to be out of town, so that there would be no one to legally…