Minnesota’s pardons board on Friday granted a posthumous pardon to a black man imprisoned a century ago in the alleged rape of a white woman, part of a case that included the infamous lynchings of three other black men in Duluth.
The board voted 3-0 to pardon Max Mason, one of several traveling circus workers accused in the 1920 case.
A case summary prepared for the board said allegation came from a young man who attended the circus with 19-year-old Irene Tusken in June 1920 and who said six workers forced the couple at gunpoint into a ravine and raped Tusken.
Several workers including Mason were arrested, but neither Tusken nor the young man could identify any of them as alleged attackers, and a family doctor found no evidence of sexual assault of Tusken, the summary said.
Mason was allowed to travel to the circus’ next city, but was re-arrested the next day, and eventually identified as an attacker by Tusken and the young man.
