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by Dan Perkins
People
often ask me what I do for a living, and when I
tell them, many ask why corporations have
supplier diversity programs, and why I feel a
need to promote those programs and the suppliers
that benefit from them.
Most
people are unaware of just how crippling America's
racially-biased laws were for African Americans.
They also "forget" that was not achieved by the law, was
often achieved through violence. According to one
source, from 1889 to 1918, at least 3,224 people were
lynched in America, and 79 percent of them were black.
That’s about the same number of people who died in the
World Trade Towers on September 11th.
My
father's generation, and his father's generation, lived
through a time of real terror - social and economic
terror, American-style. It was a time when the
consequences for failing to "stay in one's place" were
often deadly.
I was
reminded of that fact this summer when I took an
unplanned, 48-hour road trip to Duluth, Minnesota and
back
from Chicago.
I
made the trip with three close friends who joined me in
attending a mutual friend's funeral. Just days before,
the authorities in Britain had uncovered a terrorist
plot to blow up planes using liquid bombs. My
friends and I concluded that driving was a better and
more convenient option.
But
Duluth is a place that has haunted me for most of my
life.
I
first made a trek to the port city when I was eleven.
I was on my way to a summer camp that was located on the
outskirts of a small, rural town close to the Canadian
border.
I can
still recall how people in the Duluth Airport stopped
and stared as my brother and I made our way through the
terminal building. I knew we weren’t in "Kansas"
anymore.
For three years, my
brother and I made
our way from the airport into the center of town to
catch a bus to Virginia, Minnesota, which was about 20
miles from the camp.
We never had any
incidents, but long
after I stopped attending that camp, I would reflect
upon the unwelcoming glances that followed us wherever
we went in Duluth.
Maybe
those glances were a reflection of the times; after all,
I made my first trip through Duluth in 1969, when the
nation was boiling with racial tensions exacerbated by
the riots that followed the assassinations of Martin
Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy the
year before.
Although I had traveled to many places as a kid, and had
encountered many unwelcoming stares, I always felt there
was something sinister about Duluth, something that put
a chill in the air, even in the midst of summer.
Several years later, when I was a senior in high
school, I discovered the source of that chill when I
came across a history book containing a photo of a
crowd of white men standing around three battered
black men, two who were hanging from a street light
pole. The caption stated that the photo had been
widely circulated as a postcard during the 1920s,
and that the lynching had occurred in Duluth,
Minnesota.
When I first saw that photo, it affirmed that I
wasn't just imagining things; something truly
sinister had happened in Duluth.
Now, nearly 40 years after my initial visit, I took
notice of the thick clouds that turned the sky grey
as we approached the bridge that connects Superior,
Wisconsin to Duluth. I wasn't sure whether the
clouds were a foreshadowing of anything, but I
became increasingly tense as I entered the town.
I
never really got the chance to retrace my steps.
Most of my time in Duluth was devoted to the funeral
and my friends; but the lynchings were never far
from my thoughts.
After the funeral, my friends and I filled up the
gas tank and prepared to make one final pass through
the downtown Duluth. As we were about to turn onto
a street that led to a highway out of town,
something caught my eye. It was a monument of some
sort, located on the corner of the intersection
where we had just turned.
I
asked my friends to stop the car and I leaped out
with my camera in hand; and there it was. A
monument commemorating the horrific murder of three
men at the hands of hate-filled locals.
As I gazed around the large space devoted to the
monument, I was torn with emotion - horrified by the
thought of the atrocity that had occurred there, and
yet relieved, maybe even a little delighted, to see
that the people of Duluth had memorialized the
incident.
As I snapped a series of photos, I would not allow
myself to think about the men who suffered there.
Instead, I embraced the affirmations to civility and
human decency that grace the walls of the monument.
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The Dedication on the Memorial:
On June 15, 1920, following the
alleged rape of a young woman,
Duluth police locked up a number of
men who worked for a traveling
circus that evening, thousands of
Duluthians gathered outside the city
jail. The police were under
orders not to shoot, and they
obeyed.
With timbers and rails as battering
rams, the mob broke down the doors
of the jail and staged a trial of
the six men. They convicted
Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and
Isaac McGhie, who had been held as
witnesses. The crowd dragged
the young men about a block, beat
them as viciously as you can
imagine, and hanged them from a
light pole that stood diagonally
across the street from where you are
now. Some brave people spoke
out in protest, but they were few
against thousands. One man
took a photograph that was later
distributed as postcards. This
memorial is dedicated to the
memories of the murdered here and
everywhere.
Click here for a more detailed
account of the incident |
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Duluth is not be a major tourist destination, but
the Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial,
located at the corner of 1st Street and 2nd Avenue
East, is worth seeing.
I
would like opponents of affirmative action to see
the memorial since most believe race should not be
considered in social policy or in attempts to remedy
America's discriminatory past. Some of those
opponents live right across the lake from Duluth, in Michigan.
A
referendum will appear on the November ballot in
Michigan to ban all consideration of race in
university admissions and in all government hiring
and contracting.
You might recall that Michigan became a flash point
in 2003 when the U.S. Supreme Court made two
rulings on the use of race in admissions by the
University of Michigan. The court upheld the
use of race as a factor in admissions at
university’s law school, but struck down the
undergraduate school’s more rigid consideration of
race in its admission policies.
The court’s rulings were highly contentious and
spurred efforts to pass legislation aimed at getting
rid of affirmative action
altogether
in Michigan. The Michigan Civil Rights Initiative,
which is on the November ballot and modeled after
similar initiatives in California and Washington
state, is the by-product of those efforts.
California passed its initiative in 1996, and the
results have been dramatic. This year, the freshman
class at
UCLA
has 96 African Americans out of 4,700 - marking a 30
year low.
In
the decades that preceded the American Civil War,
people
used the courts to strip free African Americans of
their rights as citizens.
At
the end of the 19th century,
the courts were used to institute Jim Crow laws that
were designed to repeal the social advances of the
Reconstruction Era.
If
progressive Americans are
not diligent, we could again have a nation where
lynchings are brazenly perpetrated by individuals
who boldly pose for the camera.
I
am an unapologetic supporter of affirmative action
programs, supplier diversity initiatives and other
developmental efforts designed to assist communities
that have been historically denied full access to
the American dream. I believe in celebrating
individuals and organizations that genuinely seek to
correct the inequalities of the past; and I am
honored to celebrate those who are succeeding
through those efforts.
I
am eternally grateful for all my summer treks to and
through Duluth. My most recent trip has brought me
full circle; uniting me with both my past and my
future. It afforded me a moment to exorcise some
dark memories and gain a much deeper appreciation
for the importance of my mission, and the mission of
all of those who support social and economic
development of disadvantaged populations.
Whenever I hear of initiatives like the one in
Michigan, and whenever I get that puzzled look
regarding my career, I will reflect upon that
infamous
corner
in Duluth and know that the truth of America is
evident in the streets.
The End
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Additional Resources:
To listen to an in depth discussion of the
Michigan referendum between Dahlia
Lithwick of Slate Magazine
and talk-show host Alex Chadwick from
the Tuesday, September 5, 2006 broadcast of
NPR's, Day to Day,
click
here.
To learn
more about the
Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial
and the Memorial Board that advances racial
reconciliation in Duluth and elsewhere,
visit:
http://www.claytonjacksonmcghie.org/thestory.php.
To see
more images of the Duluth lynching and more,
visit:
http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html
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