It started out as a casual Internet genealogy search, the kind millions of people undertake every day. With a little free time and a little Google, Warren Read thought he might uncover some interesting family connections, or even a little history. What he found shocked him. An article in the now-defunct Duluth alternative weekly Ripsaw recounted the infamous Duluth lynchings of 1920. Three black circus workers were accused by a white couple of rape. A mob pulled the frightened — and innocent — young men from their jail cell, beat them, and hung them in a public display of violence that was then made into a postcard. One of the three men who led the mob was Louis Dondino, Read’s great-grandfather.
Careful with that family tree
Apr 3 2008 — 2:00am
10 Reader Comments
7:50 am
I am so, so sorry for what my great-grandfather’s brother did. Please accept my apologies. In fact, I feel so guilty knowing that he managed to escape the gallows, pardoned only at the last minute by President Lincoln himself, that I’ve decided to chronicle my guilt in a book: The Renegade in Me. Coming soon to Amazon and B&N.
7:59 am
Interesting hook.
That’ll sell some books.
Sins of your ancestors = Payday.
8:01 am
I’ve lined up MPR for some promo.
8:38 am
If it were me, I wouldn’t make light of the subject. Of course, that was then and this is now but I imagine I would be horrified to find that kind of skeleton in my family’s closet. It’s not something I would boast about.
9:36 am
I have a feelling that if a lot of people did some research they’d find that their relations that far back (or further) did some messed up stuff.
Then again, there are probably a bunch of people who would also find out their parents and grandparents did some messed up stuff too.
9:48 am
Skeletons falling out of cloests usually happens at funerals. At my last one, I gleaned that my grandmother was married before and that man died in WWWII.
9:49 am
That looks really interesting, how he’s tying in generations of family problems with this one horrible act. That would be cool to read.
Of course, my ancestors owned slaves and I’m looking for an excuse for why we’re all crazy.
9:58 am
Or in my case, my ancestor’s lives don’t really explain why I’m crazy. They were all pretty normal.
10:13 am
Lame.
I’m sorry, but my great grandfather was murdered in his home during a burglary. Tragic, yes. My grandfather was then raised in abject poverty.
Would an apology from the great grand son of the guy who shot him do something for me? No, it would make me chuckle at the useless gesture.
12:13 pm
For the life of me, I can’t think of the name of the book about these lynchings that my mom lent me. It was locally published in Duluth, and I can’t recall if it was an exact account, or a fictionalized version. Really shocked me at the time.