Artstone creates memorial for Duluth lynchings

By KEVIN SWEENEY

Journal Editor

NEW ULM -- One of the darkest moments in Minnesota history occured in Duluth on June 15, 1920, when a mob of people broke into the city jail, grabbed six black men being held as witnesses to the rape of a white girl, and lynched three of them on a lamp post.

The scene was immortalized in a photo taken at the scene and turned into a commemorative post card.

Eighty-three years later, the city of Duluth is putting up a memorial to the three victims -- Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie -- as a public acknowledgement of the crime. The city turned to American Artstone Co. of New Ulm to bring the design concept of Duluth artist Carla Stetson to reality.

Artstone is well known for taking on difficult challenges, said company President Nancy Fogelberg. This job is different in a couple of ways, she said. It's the first time Artstone's artisans are combining their poured stone work with bronze figures, and it's not often that their work is so closely involved with history.

Stetson has cast three figures of the victims -- not as they appeared in the infamous postcard, but standing tall, well-dressed and proud -- out of bronze. The figures were attached Tuesday at the Artstone plant to a large wall panel, cast in tan stone and inscribed with their names and the story of their murders.

The workers labored to move the 7-foot-tall figures into just the right spot so large bolts could be threaded through the stone into the threaded holes in the figures.

About 25 pieces, including wall panels and bases, were cast at Artstone for the project. They are being loaded up onto semi trailers for shipment to Duluth this month.

The panels will be set up in Duluth, at a site across the street diagonally from the lynching site. Beside the panel with the figures of Clayton, Jackson and McGhie, other panels are inscribed with quotations dealing with violence, injustice, hatred and forgiveness.

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest," reads one inscription from Elie Wiesel.

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one one getting burned," reads another from Siddharta Gautama.

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing," says an inscription from Albert Einstein.

Other quotations come from the likes of Dr. Martin Luther King and Oscar Wilde.

Fogelberg said the quotations, selected by Minneapolis writer Anthony Porter, who did the text on the main wall, are inspiring and thought provoking. She and her employees are taking a lot of pride and satisfaction in being part of the monument, and part of the healing it is to represent.