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"The Contemplation Of Our Righteousness": Vigilante Acts Against African Americans In Southwest Minnesota, 1903, Christopher P. Lehman

Ethnic and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

In 1903 an African American man came to Montevideo, Minnesota from out of state and was accused of physically assaulting a European American woman. The townspeople formed a posse and searched for the alleged assailant in southern Minnesota. At the time the African American population was in the single digits. None of the African American residents knew the alleged attacker or were related to him. Nevertheless, the victim's family approached those residents and told them to leave town, and their subsequent departure left Montevideo without African Americans for well over half a century. The local press covered the alleged attack …