Opposed to Mob Rule.
Type of event: Lynchings
Location: Minnesota; United States
Citation:
National Advocate, June 26,1920, page 1.
“Opposed to Mob Rule”
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OPPOSED TO RULE OF MOB
Colored
Attorney of St. Paul Investigates
Conditions in Duluth
Colored People
Eager to Cleanse Own
Race of Crime
The colored people of Minnesota are anxious to cleanse their own race
and promote better citizenship among colored people, according to J. Louis
Ervin, colored attorney of St. Paul and member of the St. Paul branch of the
National Association ofr the Advancement of Colored People, who is in Duluth
today making an investigation of the cause, conditions and sentiment regarding
the lynching of three negroes here Tuesday night.
Affidavits Procured.
Mr. Ervin, while here, will procure affidavits from the colored prisoners at the county jail regarding their knowledge of the crime of last Monday when a white girl was assaulted,
J. Louis Irvin.
and will also get the opinions of prominent white and colored persons of
Duluth regarding the lynching. This information will be forwarded to the Crisis,
a publication of the colored organization, to which he belongs.
The purpose
of Mr. Ervin’s work is to get at the facts, to find out as to the guilt of
the negroes arrested and use this information in aiding colored people to
co-operate with the whites in stamping out crime among colored folk. His
information will have no bearing on the trials of the prisoners now being held
here.
Mr. Ervin says he finds that the prominent white and colored people of
Duluth, are thoroughly opposed to mob rule.
Condemn Mob Rule.
Resolutions condemning the actions of the mob in taking the law into their
own hands and lynching the three negroes Tuesday night, without a trial, were
adopted by Duluth negroes at a meeting held last night for that purpose. They
also offered their support in every effort to be made to uphold law and
order.
The resolution signed by a committee composed of William Dauson, C.
Harris and C. W. Young was as follows:
Whereas, we, the colored citizens of
Duluth, having always stood for law and order, and now stand ready to lend every
honorable effort in helping to maintain the same, and
Whereas, the recent
lynching of three members of our race, not citizens of this city, nevertheless
human beings and entitled to a hearing at law, no matter what crime they have
been accused of and
Whereas, it causes all respectable citizens to hand
their head in shame, and since we cannot escape the blot that has been so
hideously put upon our fair city by the dastardly hand of a mob.
Be it
resolved, That we put our firm stamp of disapproval upon this deed and condemn
it with all the odium at our command.–Duluth Herald.