THE LYNCHER IN ME
THE LYNCHER IN ME
A SEARCH FOR REDEMPTION IN THE FACE OF HISTORY
WARREN READ
Borealis Books is an imprint of the Minnesota Historical Society Press.
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© 2008 by Warren Read. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to Borealis Books, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102-1906.
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Manufactured in Canada
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ISBN-13: 978-0-87351-607-5 (cloth)
ISBN-10: 0-87351-607-9 (cloth)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Read, Warren
The lyncher in me : a search for redemption in the face of history / Warren Read.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-87351-607-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-87351-607-9 (cloth : alk. paper)
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-87351-683-9
1. Lynching—Minnesota—Duluth—History—20th century. 2. Duluth (Minn.)—Race relations—History—20th century. 3. Duluth (Minn.)—Biography. 4. Read, Warren, 1967– —Family. 5. Read, Warren, 1967– —Childhood and youth. 6. Family secrets—Case studies. 7. Redemption—Case studies. 8. Read, Warren, 1967– —Travel—West (U.S.) 9. West (U.S.)—Description and travel. I. Title.
HV6462.M6R43 2008
364.1'34—dc22
2007044847
PICTURE CREDITS
p. 98, bottom: Courtesy of the Kansas State Historical Society
p. 99: Minnesota Historical Society Collections
p. 104, top: Josephine Lawrence Collection, 1844–1896, Western Historical Manuscript Collection–Columbia, Missouri
Photograph of rope for part titles by Craig Davidson
All other photos Read collection
Evil is unspectacular and always human,
and shares our bed and eats at our own table.
W. H. AUDEN
The following memoir is a work of nonfiction. The people depicted in the book are, or were, living and have been illustrated to the best of my recollection or, in the case of historical figures, by thorough research. In some cases, the names have been changed to protect the identity of a living person not connected with the publication of this book or whose family members might be negatively impacted by the person’s depiction. All historical figures are recounted according to researched documents; no names have been changed in those cases.
THE LYNCHER IN ME
CHAPTER 1
Two men are back to back, their bodies slightly touching just at the elbows. A thick wooden pole stands between them, beginning just behind their heels and rising up above their heads, disappearing from the frame of the postcard. Bare skin, arms restrained by their own torn shirts, they are the centerpiece of a gratuitous, macabre portrait.
Lines of white rope encircle their necks; a crescent of even whiter faces surrounds the hanging bodies in a proud display of heroic conquest. They are scarecrows nailed to a tree, hovering just inches above the ground. Of the dozens of bystanders in the scene, only one is smiling unabashedly—a brilliant, ecstatic grin that is all the more incongruous when one notices, nearly touching his right shoe, the head of a third victim, his body lying in a pummeled heap at the man’s feet.
I’ve been among people who I’m sure would sooner see me dead than living with another man and I know that there are times and places that I might be discovered hanging from a hastily fashioned noose or tied to a barbed-wire fence, enveloped by men and women who see me not as a human being but as a category, an aberration, an epithet. I take in the seething hatred in the photo, the objectification of a human being set apart from the masses, and I know that as far-removed as I am from the men beaten and lynched that night long ago, I am not so different.
A shift in my perspective and I’m scanning the figures in the image for something else entirely. The faces surrounding the dead men are stoic, satiated; a few even look uncomfortable. I search apprehensively for the familiar, peering at heads that crane above the crowd, men vying to be captured by the photographer’s lens. There is one whose frown could be my mother’s and my heartbeat falters. Another one has my eyes. A blurred figure just on the edge of the frame has the prominent nose that I’ve come to recognize as my relation, but the jawline isn’t right. This jaw is soft, not squared and chiseled as if from granite and once again I am relieved. It’s not him. I am pulled into the muted imagery of the crowd and before I know it, I become lost trying to force the past into the present. What I am seeking exists somewhere in that photo and I know that as far removed as I am from the men standing in that crowd eight decades ago, I am not so different.
I imagine that I might crawl into the scene, like a photographic version of Alice’s looking glass. And from my vantage point some eighty years later and a thousand miles away, I could actually be in Duluth, on that June night of 1920. I would walk among the mob, passing between them, and perhaps then I would see all sides—the trembling arms, the sweat along the backs of their necks, the deep scratches on the edges of their shiny black boots—and maybe then their evil would become less potent. I would ask them, is this what you really wanted all along? When the morning light shines down on this corner will you return to stand again in smug satisfaction? I would move into the headlights’ beam and stand at the post, reaching out to touch the hands of the murdered, and I would promise them that one day they would be raised again, only this time in admiration and atonement. Then I might turn and go beyond the camera’s eye, back down Second Avenue to the battered jailhouse with its bricks scattered in the street among shards of broken window and maybe there I would find him and I would finally be able to ask, “Pa, do you know what you have done?” And when I take his hands in mine I would show him, make him see the blood, show him that the blood covering his hands has traveled three lifetimes to stain the hands of his descendants. And maybe then he would tell me what I need to hear.
CHAPTER 2
I crouched behind the bushes; spines of holly leaves scratched the sides of my face. A wild throw and both my ten-year-old son Dylan and I were digging through the one spot in the garden I’d hoped not to have to search for a baseball. Still I smiled confidently, knowing that if nothing else, my son wasn’t afraid to be where he was, by my side, seeking to correct a less-than-perfect effort on his part.
On a night not too long ago in the relative realm of generational time, when I was just a few years older than my son is now, a holly bush of this size would play a completely different role for me. Its invasive scratch on my skin would be a strange comfort, dancing ever so lightly against the flesh. The holly bush then was an irritating reassurance of camouflage, safety from him, a man whose life would have been much less complicated with me, his wife’s burdensome young son, out of the picture. I scraped the dirt aside as my son asked again if I’d found the ball. I