Minnesota posthumously pardons African American man convicted of rape that led to lynchings 100 years ago

It's been almost 100 years since a 21-year-old African American man from Alabama was arrested and convicted for the rape of a white woman in Minnesota. The state's Board of Pardons unanimously granted a posthumous pardon to Max Mason on Friday.

Jerry Blackwell, the attorney who made the pardon application, said at the hearing that Mason's case shows the ongoing "stereotypical and racist view of black men in America" a century later.

"The short years of his life were taken away from him because of a prejudice and unjust system in America," said Blackwell who compared Mason to other African Americans like Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Emmett Till, Christian Cooper, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin and Stephon Clark who were killed or victimized in incidents that sparked national outrage about racism, and in particular, racism directed at black men and boys.

Mason worked with a traveling circus that made a stop in Duluth, Minnesota, on June 14, 1920. After that day's performance, Irene Tusken and her boyfriend, James Sullivan, both white, said they were confronted by several African American circus workmen, and alleged that Tusken was raped.

The following day, Sullivan told his father about the alleged rape and the claim was reported to the Duluth Police Department.

Mason and 13 other African American men including Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie were arrested. Neither Sullivan nor Tusken could positively identify any of the arrested men at the precinct

Tusken, 19, was examined by a family physician who did not find evidence of a "sexual intercourse, including abrasions, bruising, inflammation, soreness or tenderness," according to the posthumous application.

Mason was released to continue on to the next town with the circus, but Clayton, Jackson and McGhie remained behind bars.

That night, an angry mob invaded the jail, kidnapped Clayton, Jackson and McGhie and lynched them from a lamp post near the corner of East 1st Street and North 2nd Avenue East as a crowd of thousands watched. A photograph taken of the lynching was printed and infamously created into a postcard sold as a souvenir.

Mason was eventually arrested, indicted, went to trial, convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison on December 2, 1920.

Five years later, Mason was released on parole as "even then, many people believed the conviction was bad," wrote Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Twitter Thursday evening.

"The trial judge didn't believe there was enough evidence to convict Mason. Years later the district attorney -- who was a different district attorney than the one who tried the case -- wrote that if Max Mason was white, he didn't believe Max Mason would have been convicted," said Blackwell.

The nephew of Irene Tusken who is also the chief of the Duluth Police Department supported the pardon request in order to right the wrong of his "family's secret" and denounce the botched police investigation.

Mike Tusken said he went his whole life not knowing the details of what happened to his aunt and only learned about the case in a book that was published in 2000 -- the year Irene Tusken died after suffering a stroke and losing the ability to speak.

"The actions and investigation by the Duluth Police Department that followed a report by Mr. Tusken at the time, ignored the facts and relied on speculation, conjecture and intimidation ... This was an abomination and disgrace of the police profession and a total disregard of justice," said Mike Tusken.

After Mason's release, he went back to Alabama where he raised a family and died at 46.

"We served him a tainted justice when it should have been pure," said Blackwell, adding, "We didn't do right by him and we need to do right by him now. Clear his name so we can do right by him and his memory."

Rogier Gregoire, a member of the Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial, Inc. located across the street from the murder scene, said he supported Mason's pardon in order "to erase the evidence that there was an actual crime so that Clayton, Jackson and McGhie's memory can be cleared as well."

The board unanimously voted for Mason's pardon and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz granted the request.

A bill named after Emmett Till that would consider lynching a federal crime has been stalled for approval in the Senate as of June 4.