What would you do if you inadvertently discovered that an ancestor of yours had been one of the chief perpetrators of an especially heinous crime? Would you keep quiet about it out of shame or embarrassment? Would you talk about it with only your fellow family members and maybe a very select group of friends?
What if that ancestor was your great-grandfather whom you had never met but of whom you had heard countless heartwarming stories from your mother -- stories of an old man depicted as kind, gentle, fun, and doting? Would you feel moved to write a book about it, and let the world know that your kindly great-grandfather -- a white man -- had been involved in a murderous act?
In Warren Read's case, that is exactly what he has done. His book is a deeply personal journey into the dark and forgotten corners of his working-class family's rather turbulent history. In painfully honest fashion, Read expatiates on his own often tortured attempts to make sense of the myriad ways intolerance can explode suddenly both around and within us. Central to this compelling chronicle is the grim tale of brute racism, of the feral, mindless, and murderous mob violence that exploded one summer night in Duluth, Minnesota, 88 years ago, and how the shock waves of that malicious act still vibrate.
A gay man, Read is today a teacher who resides with his partner on Bainbridge Island here in Puget Sound. His present life stands in stark contrast to the chaos and unpredictability that suffused so much of Read's childhood years. After having separated from his mother, Read's father wound up in prison for molesting the daughters of the family. His mother took up with another man, a heavy drinker who regularly demonstrated his contempt for young Warren by heaping on the boy copious verbal abuse accompanied by occasional bouts of physical violence.
Now a father himself, Read knew that from his own difficult experiences growing up he had little to guide him in the ways of fatherhood: "So what happens when a man finds himself planted in the role in which the only models he had ever had are men whose influence he has spent his whole life trying to escape?" Curious to find out more about what lay behind those figures in the family he had known, Read set off on a genealogical search: "Alcoholism, petty theft, trials, and convictions had each made regular appearances in my family since I could remember. What stories could I possibly find in my lineage that would be more scandalous than those that existed in my own memories?" One that on discovery filled him with "trepidation and dread."
Then a "busy Minnesota shipping and mill town," Duluth in 1920 was not the Deep South. That would not matter on the night of June 15, when six Black workers -- roustabouts with the Robinson Circus that was in the process of packing up and moving on -- would be placed under arrest and accused -- falsely -- of raping a local white teenage female. Read writes that "the idea that a mob lynching could have happened in the north, far from the KKK rallies and cross-burnings of the Deep South, still seemed like an anomaly. It wasn't, though, as I would discover over and over again."
Read portrays the blood lust and fury of the white mob that swells to thousands outside the jail and overwhelms the small police force attempting to protect the hapless prisoners inside. Three of the prisoners were thrown into the howling street, where apparently only one lone voice -- that of a local Catholic priest -- called for sanity and due process of law. The priest was ignored. The three defenseless Black men were murdered to the deranged glee of the executioners and thousands of jubilant onlookers.
A photograph of the event was duly taken. "Dozens of men gathered around the dead, smiling with pride and exhilaration as if posing at a postgame rally." The grisly photo became a postcard. "The cards would sell out within days." Only two members of that night's teeming homicidal mob ever stood trial, and each would ultimately serve less than two and a half years in prison. One of those men was Read's great-grandfather.
In the process of investigating the roots of his family, Read offers a poignant reflection on coming of age, on history unearthed and confronted, and on coming to terms with the way in which personal feelings of bigotry can translate into rigid patterns of hate and intolerance that remain pernicious realities within society at large: "What makes a victim? What moves a person from his identity as a human being to an object of hatred and violence? Throughout this journey, I'd asked myself the question over and over again, as it related not just to those at the lynching that infamous night, but to men and women today."{filedir_7}060408lyncher.jpg