[ST. PAUL, MN] – Three days after Governor Tim Walz issued the state’s first posthumous pardon to Max Mason, who was used as a scapegoat for a mob that lynched three black men in Duluth in 1920, he has issued a proclamation to officially recognize today as Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie Commemoration Day on the 100^th anniversary of their deaths.

“The foundational principles of our State and Nation were horrifically and inexcusably violated on June 15, 1920, when Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, three Black men, were wrongfully accused of a crime,” reads Governor Walz’s proclamation. “We must not allow such communal atrocities to happen again. Everyone must be aware of this tragic history.”

On June 15, 1920, Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson, and Isaac McGhie, three Black men, were wrongfully accused of a crime, violently removed from the Duluth city jail by an estimated mob of 10,000, and brutally hanged from a lamp post on a city street.