They're questions that weren't asked this campaign season -- at least not publicly at candidate forums or elsewhere. But questions about disparities, equity and racial justice demand not only to be asked but to be answered any time public office is being sought.
They're issues critical to any community. They're especially relevant in Duluth where, in 1920, three black circus workers were wrongfully accused and brutally lynched by a white mob, the moment a lasting smear on our history, a blight that was covered up for decades before finally being acknowledged.
So the folks behind a memorial to that lynching asked. And the candidates this fall for Duluth City Council, Duluth School Board and St. Louis County Board answered . Every single one of them. Their responses to the sometimes-uncomfortable issues posed by Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Inc. and its Public Policy Committee were thorough, candid, and insightful.
And more than worthy of every voters' consideration before heading to the polls tomorrow.
(Disclosure: News Tribune Editorial Page Editor Chuck Frederick is a board member of Clayton Jackson McGhie Inc. and chairman of its Public Policy Committee.)
