90 years later, the community is still learning

4/28/2010
By Laura Podgornik
For KUWS 91.3 FM

The sites connected to Duluth’s darkest day will be part of a symposium at the University of Wisconsin – Superior to remember the three black men lynched by a mob of 5,000 people there in 1920. 

The symposium will be held 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday in the Yellowjacket Union, room 203, on the UW-Superior campus.  

University of Wisconsin - Superior Sociology Professor Marshall Johnson helped organize the symposium to remember the 1920 lynching in Duluth.  

“This is an occasion for us to recall, not just the facts of what happened, but what the lynchings in Duluth actually mean, especially in light of our situations today because those events are over, but in the world today, the things that made that possible are still out there and circulating,” said Johnson. 

UW-Superior Art History Professor Pope Wright will speak briefly at the symposium. Wright teaches students about the June 15, 1920 lynching in Duluth in an African-American Art History course.  

Wright believes the racist Facebook exchanges at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, which came to light earlier this month, show prejudice still exists. 

“There seems to be a feeling that ‘oh those days are gone and things are much better now’ and certainly things are much better but as we’ve read in the recent Duluth newspaper, there was an incident at UMD, across the bay from us. So, those intense feelings of animosity certainly still remain,” said Wright. 

Johnson says he hopes people can relate this event to other things going on in the world.  

“Here we are, this is Duluth and Superior. This is a small part of the world. This is about in some sense just about three men, but I think this university’s purpose is to help us understand the broader significance of sometimes what seem to be small things. Things that in fact were forgetten or buried,” said Johnson. 

The symposium will feature lynching authors Warren Read and Michael Fedo. There will also be a tour of the lynching sites on Saturday. The tour begins at 9 a.m. at Wheeler Field in West Duluth.