Opposed to Mob Rule.

Type of event: Lynchings

Location: Minnesota; United States

Document date:

Document type: Newspaper(s)

Documents: Opposed to Mob Rule.

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.