Charles Thurber Memorial
UPDATE 09/28/2020:
Today I am closing down this GoFundMe campaign. Please donate to the Charles Thurber Memorial Scholarship Fund by going to the link below and selecting "Charles Thurber Memorial Scholarship Fund" from the dropdown menu.
https://www.gofoundation.org/give-fund.html
Thank you all so much!
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Monies raised by this fundraiser will go towards installing a memorial for Grand Forks resident Charles Thurber, who was lynched in 1882. Excess funds will go to building the Charles Thurber Memorial Scholarship Fund with the Community Foundation of Grand Forks.
Thurber’s History:
In 1882, an angry mob of an estimated 2,000 Grand Forks residents hanged Charles Thurber from the railroad bridge on the Red River. Mr. Thurber had been accused of raping two white women. By many accounts, there was little to no evidence that he had raped these women. Mr. Thurber was not assumed to be innocent until proven guilty nor was he afforded due process of the law. Additionally, no one was held responsible for his lynching, as so many were implicated in his death.
From the Daily Herald (what is now the Grand Forks Herald):
"Mr O.M. Thomas drove the body, incased [sic] in a plain coffin, to the cemetery. No mourners or even spectators followed. It was decided that no inquest would be held. No one demanded it and nobody wanted it. Directly or indirectly, almost the entire town was implicated. There being not the slightest pretension to secrecy, no investigation as to the means of this death was necessary. It is understood the he fell of [sic] the bridge and was hurt."
"Yesterday public comment over the lynching of Thurber completely subsided, and while it was the universal theme of conversation, yet it was mainly good humored comment and recitals of the amusing episodes omitted from the reports."
It is well beyond time to honor Mr. Thurber. We would like to do so with a plaque placed along the banks of the Red River near the site of his death. This memorial is intended to acknowledge the pain, agony, suffering, and humiliation Mr. Thurber endured on October 24, 1882. Acknowledging this significant piece of community history is an important step in healing racial tension that exists to this day.
Background Memorial Information:
This memorial was initiated in 1997 by Central High School teacher Mrs. Audra Kutz-Mehl’s sophomore English class and the Central High School Black Culture Club. The Grand Forks City Council approved the memorial and granted funding to Mrs. Kutz-Mehl’s students to build the memorial, but shortly after, the community was hit hard by the flood of 1997 and Mr. Thurber’s memorial plans fell to the wayside.
Discussion of the memorial was resumed several times later. Over the years, the memorial has been approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, the Greenway Technical Staff, the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission, and other entities. Language was approved for the memorial by Grand Forks City Attorney Howard Swanson in 2018. All that is needed to bring the memorial to fruition is the funding.
Please consider donating to this fundraiser to give Mr. Thurber the recognition and dignity that he was not afforded in 1882. Once the memorial is built, a community-wide memorial service will occur at the site of the memorial.
Links:
Trigger warning: The following links contain graphic description of violence and may contain graphic photos of the incident:
A Look Back at Lynching in Forks
Quest to Memorialize an Ugly Piece of Grand Forks History
Memorial Possible for Man Lynched by Mob in Grand Forks in 1882
