The Lynchings in Duluth. MIchael Fedo
drifted beyond the crowd behind the wagons and tents. They were probably among the few who noticed the gathering around the cook tent of black employees who were lounging or shooting craps.
There, nineteen-year-old Elmer Jackson rolled the hot dice. Joyfully, he spun out sevens and elevens, quickly taking a day’s wages from other workers. Their laughter and profane exhortations to the dice could be faintly heard above the blowing calliopes, if one listened carefully. Apparently no one did. It was, after all, only the circus Negroes whooping it up.
One can only speculate what ran through the minds of the girl and boy that night. There were those who said Irene was loose; Jimmy was reportedly fast. Some would insinuate that indiscreet lust prevailed there in the damp softness of the fields away from the crowds, where no one could see, and the heat of passion would have warded off the nighttime chill.
Yet others would maintain that the two had started something that could bring them both easy cash. Negroes, they said, would give a week’s pay for a white girl. Still others would later insist the two had it in for blacks and simply wanted to make them pay for their blackness.
The two proceeded beyond the cook tent into the field, about fifty yards away. The blacks must have seen them go, and no doubt followed them. The young couple’s excursion behind the tent into the field may have been viewed by black employees as an invasion of privacy. No young whites would encroach black turf unless they were looking for trouble.
But whatever happened there, it was not something Jimmy or Irene would ever openly discuss. It was certain, though, that whatever their plans, something went awry.
2
DULUTH WAS THEN, AND REMAINS TODAY, a thin ribbon of city, stretching along the shores of Lake Superior for twenty-five miles at a northeast slant. Its boundaries creep back from the lake at distances varying from a half mile to barely four miles. Variously described as rugged or picturesque, Duluth is set on a hill overlooking Lake Superior. Across the St. Louis River bay lies Superior, Wisconsin. Together, the two cities have been called the Twin Ports. Both waterfronts support active trade, although Duluth predominates.
The city is situated about one hundred and fifty-five miles northeast of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and about one hundred and fifty miles southwest of the Canadian border. The dominant subculture in Duluth, as in all of Minnesota at the time, was Scandinavian.
Superior Street, the main artery, follows the line of the lake and holds most of the major downtown businesses—hotels, clothiers, banks, and restaurants. Downtown Superior Street covers about nine blocks from Fifth Avenue West to Third Avenue East and is situated about three blocks from the lake.
Duluth begins in the weedy, barren shambles that is Gary, a neighborhood initially populated by many of the city’s blacks, most of whom had come from southern states in search of employment. A few blacks were native to the area of northern Minnesota, their ancestors having been with early logging and trapping concerns. And by 1920, perhaps three hundred of the city’s five hundred black residents lived in Gary.
Slightly east was Morgan Park, which would evolve from northern European immigrants to become a Serbian and Slavic settlement built around the large plant erected by U.S. Steel. For many years, Morgan Park was a virtual company town—small frame houses on neat, orderly streets. Though some blacks worked at the plant, they were not allowed to live in Morgan Park, within easy commuting distance of the plant.
To the east, another mile or so, was West Duluth, populated by blue-collar families, Italians, and Finns; workers from the factories settled into neat, serviceable houses painted white or brown, pale green, or gray. Their children attended Denfeld High School, and citizens took great pride in Denfeld’s athletic dominance over teams from wealthier Central High.
In the central or east hillside area, beginning about Fourth Avenue West, was an intermingling of workers living in ordinary two-story homes as well as stately mansions built by lumber barons during the 1880s and 1890s. Duluth’s east end arbitrarily started about Fifteenth Avenue East, moving into fashionable Woodland, Lester Park, and Lakeside, where the professionals—lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers—dwelt in company with bankers and lumber and mining industrialists.
Both Irene Tusken and Jimmy Sullivan lived in West Duluth neighborhoods. Irene’s father, Arnold, was a mail carrier and probably walked the city from one end to the other on various routes during his years with the postal service. Perhaps he was comfortable in the cozy blocks around Forty-eighth Avenue West and Sixth Street, where folks in similar economic straits tended to pull together, tended to give a feeling of small-town living. But if there was small-town security, there was also small-town gossip. And with his postman’s ear for housewifely gossip, he no doubt had heard rumors about Jimmy Sullivan.
Jimmy was spoiled, many used to say. The kid had too much money for his own good. He took in $140 a month down at the docks in a day when many family men felt fortunate to earn perhaps one hundred dollars. There was some resentment, too, on the part of neighborhood men that Jimmy got the good job because his father was superintendent at the grain terminal.
But the rumors that would have most distressed Mr. Tusken were the continual references to the boy’s drinking. Jimmy supposedly bought hooch every chance he got. Further, Mr. Sullivan didn’t directly disapprove, saying that his kid was a little wild, maybe, but would eventually settle down. And at Denfeld, where teachers were considered stern disciplinarians, Jimmy was never in real trouble. Folks wondered why. He smoked cigarettes in open defiance of the school ban and bragged about his easy relationship with many girls. None of this kept him from playing forward on the basketball team, and some parents were upset because the boy rarely bothered to obey training regulations.
What had to disturb Mr. Tusken about all this was that his daughter was infatuated with the young man. He may have felt rather powerless because Irene was, after all, on her own, earning her own keep. He doubtless felt that as a father he had a responsibility to keep his daughter from trouble, and Jimmy Sullivan looked like trouble. As the relationship between Jimmy and Irene developed, it probably crossed Arnold’s mind that Jimmy might be taking advantage of Irene.
Irene didn’t finish school as Jimmy had. Perhaps her father thought her naive, unable to see behind Jimmy’s scheming. Mercifully, the gossips didn’t talk about the girl when Mr. Tusken was within earshot. But they did talk about her. It may have been guilt by association, but if Jimmy was wild, and Irene was often with him, what conclusions could the gossips draw?
At the Sullivan home, Jimmy was often a center-stage attraction. His father liked to talk about the boy’s grit and determination. He was also a handsome boy, muscular and stocky, with a ready and confident smile. When his hair was combed straight back off his forehead, many people thought he resembled the man who modeled Arrow shirts in newspapers and magazines. His father liked to think that Jimmy was a “chip off the old block.”
But others who knew him from the neighborhood and at school, where Jimmy had graduated in June 1920, thought him arrogant, especially regarding women. None of this kept many young girls from finding him appealing, despite, or perhaps because of, his apparent penchant for vandalism and other questionable pranks.
Young people, offspring of immigrant or second-generation stock, often resented traditional restrictions and were looking ahead to the bright, happy times. They were anxious to get the twenties roaring. Jimmy was a bit ahead of his time. He could make them roar already.
About 8 PM on the night of June 14, Irene Tusken boarded a Grand Avenue streetcar traveling east and got off at the Vernon Street stop. She walked several blocks west toward the circus grounds. As she approached the well-lighted circus area, she saw the entrance arch ringed with electric and gas lights a few feet from Grand Avenue. On the other side of the arch was a passageway sprinkled with sawdust and lined with sideshow tents and concession stands.
The calliope sounds swelled over the grounds, mingling with the delighted shrieks of youngsters and teenagers on numerous rides. Although it was not quite dark, the fully lighted passageway lent a twinkling to the carefree carnival atmosphere.