Nearly 100 years ago, Max Mason was sentenced to 30 years in prison for his role in the alleged rape of a white woman in Minnesota. Just three days before the 100-year anniversary of his conviction and the infamous Duluth lynchings that came with the case, Mason was posthumously pardoned.
CBS reported that in 1920, Mason was in Duluth as part of a traveling circus. He and three other black men were accused of raping a 19-year-old white woman that year. The other three men, Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, and Elias Clayton, were all lynched. Mason was the only one sentenced to prison, even though a doctor found no evidence that the white woman was raped.
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Mason was denied parole six times between 1922 and 1925, according to the pardon application. He was released from prison in 1925 on the condition that he not return to Minnesota for the next 16 years. A district attorney several years later questioned the evidence against Mason and said he likely would not have been convicted if he were white.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is on the Board of Pardons, tweeted Thursday that “justice delayed is justice denied. But 100 years later, justice can still be done.”
Ellison, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minnesota Chief Justice Lorie Gildea all voted to pardon Mason. Walz said there was a “direct line” between Mason’s case and the murder of George Floyd.
“This is 100 years overdue,” Walz said. “By not addressing this, it continued the systemic racism.”
Mason’s case was supposed to be heard by the Board of Pardons six months ago, Walz added, “not knowing that we would see the murder of George Floyd in the meantime.”
“I don’t believe anything happens by chance,” Walz said, according to CBS. “I believe we were given this opportunity.”
It is unclear why the board didn’t hear Mason’s case six months ago.
Mike Tusken, the grand-nephew of Irene Tusken, who made the false rape claim against the men, supported Mason’s pardon, saying he was not aware of his family’s connection to the case until his mother explained it to him in 2000 when his aunt died.
“Tusken said he believed the secrecy was because of his family’s shame and a desire to forget about the injustice,” CBS reported. “Tusken said his aunt died in a nursing home after suffering a stroke, incapable of speech and ‘unable to atone’ for her actions.”
Tusken, who is now the chief of police in Duluth, called the case against Mason and the other men an “abomination” and a “disgrace to the police profession.”
Tusken said Mason was arrested “wholly on speculation, conjecture and intimidation” and because the town was desperate “to make an arrest and hold someone, anyone accountable, regardless of the facts and evidence in the case.”
“Justice was denied to Mr. Mason during his lifetime, but this board has an opportunity to right this wrong today,” Tusken added, according to CBS.
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