Standing up to Terror
When William Francis and his wife Nellie found a cross burning on their property yet again, they faced the dilemma of many African Americans who have suffered through this terror from Reconstruction days on. Even today in Minnesota, African Americans are not free from the scourge of cross-burning, as evidenced in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul,112 S. Ct. 2538 (1992), in which several teenagers burned a cross on the lawn of an African American family in 1990.
William Francis was a St. Paul attorney who, along with his wife Nellie, was prominent in St. Paul social circles and in Minnesota’s civil rights movement in the early 1920s. In 1924, William and Nellie purchased a home on Sargent Avenue in the Groveland Park neighborhood of St. Paul. They had lived in the African American Rondo neighborhood on St. Anthony, as well as on Berkeley Avenue, just blocks from their proposed home. In that year, African Americans comprised about 1.4% of St. Paul’s population.
When they learned of the purchase, seventy-five neighbors met at a public school to form the Cretin Improvement Association and voted that “colored persons are not wanted in their district.” The head of the improvement association, Oscar Arneson, was a journalist from Norway, a printer, and the former chief clerk in the Minnesota statehouse.
The Cretin organization even authorized funds to pay for horns, a brass band, and flares to induce the Francis family to back out of the sale. On October 5, before the Francises had moved in, a giant cross was burned on their newly purchased property.
When William and Nellie refused to cow to the pressure, neighbors began a campaign to terrorize them into moving. They sent threatening postcards to the couple’s homes and Francis’ office, and threatened them by telephone. When the association offered to purchase the house for $1000, the Francis family declined.
On November 1, over 200 white neighbors marched in front of the house, lighting flares as they went. A second cross was burned on the property on December 5. Francis pleaded with the NAACP for their help in December 1924, noting “I am of the opinion that they do not intend to quit until some act of violence has been committed.” Although St. Paul mayor Arthur Nelson, also a St. Paul College of Law graduate, stood in support of the family and promised protection, and the NAACP exerted its pressure on city officials, William and Nellie had to hire guards to protect their house for a while.
Ultimately, William and Nellie Francis chose to stay, and they lived in their home without further violence until they moved to Liberia in 1927.
Early Public Career
William Francis enrolled in St. Paul College of Law, completing his degree in 1904. His classmates included future Minnesota Senator Thomas Schall and John A. Burns, the future dean of St. Paul College of Law and William Mitchell College of Law.
Upon graduation, Francis became one of the highest-ranking African American businessmen in the state when he was appointed permanent chief clerk of the Northern Pacific’s legal department, remarkable because it was one of the few positions where an African American would supervise white employees. Although as chief clerk he also practiced law on the side, Francis finally left Northern Pacific when his friend and mentor Frederick McGhee, the first African American to practice in the state, died in 1912. Francis took over McGee’s solo law practice.
Francis was known for taking civil rights and race discrimination cases, though he practiced widely in civil areas such as divorce, probate, personal injury, real estate, and business law as well as some criminal defense. Among the successes he had were a habeas action against the St. Paul police for holding African American women in custody without charge, and cases against public accommodations for failing to serve African Americans, including a successful suit to overturn the Wilder Public Baths’ refusal to serve African Americans. An impressive victory was a $3000 judgment in a malicious prosecution suit by Pullman porter George T. Williams, who had been arrested for work misconduct alleged by his superior. The largest verdict of its time, the judgment was overturned on appeal.
Political and Community Life
William Francis was a lifelong Republican, participating actively in the Party. In 1906, Francis ran for St. Paul city assembly and lost, though he got 9,000 votes.In 1911, he unsuccessfully lobbied President William Taft to be appointed U.S. Minister to Haiti, though he got plenty of local party support for his bid. Francis also lost a bid for the state assembly in 1912. In 1916, he was nominated for a state legislative seat representing the Thirty-eighth district in St. Paul but was not successful.
In 1920, Francis was chosen for the Minnesota Republican Central Committee. He led the effort to get black Republicans in the western states to vote for President Warren Harding, although he was critical of a major speech that Harding made on race. Though Harding’s speech suggested that race was a national problem that called for securing equal rights for African American citizens, Harding also claimed that the white and black races were fundamentally different. Francis pointed out that this argument would justify continued segregation. Although he did not argue for social equality, Francis claimed the right of African Americans to do the same things their white counterparts did, such as work at a job, plead a case, paint a picture, and write a book. Despite his differences with Harding on race, Francis served as an elector for Harding in the presidential election that year.
Locally, William Francis was active in many other aspects of community life. He was a director of the Union Hall Association. He also served on the Ramsey County Public Safety Commission and on the Mayor’s Advisory Committee. He was also listed as a Government Appeal Agent.
During World War I, Francis supported the war effort by doing patriotic lectures for African American draftees and raising funds to support their families. He joined the Ramsey County Public Safety Commission and served as a duly appointed “war orator.”
A Couple of Racial Advocates
William and Nellie Francis, each supporting the advocacy of the other in a time when husbands and wives did not usually work as a political team, exercised perhaps the most important influence on race and gender issues in Minnesota in their time.
On race issues, William Francis was a moderate, following the views of Booker T. Washington. When he gave a speech on Reconstruction and race relations in 1919, Francis urged the audience of African Americans to set aside the unfairness of their treatment, and “make up your mind to improve your condition and do it.” Francis supported mainstream civil rights organizations, often as an officer. He was a founder of the Minnesota chapter of the NAACP and a delegate to the National Negro Education Conference. In 1902 and 1904, he participated in meetings of the National Afro-American Council, the first national civil rights organization that served as an umbrella for state and local organizations. Francis also was credited with passage of legislation prohibiting racial discrimination by hair-dressing schools.
Francis’ wife Nellie was a civil rights activist in her own right, and William supported her in her work. In 1915, Nellie became concerned about the effect of the first Hollywood blockbuster, a 1915 film called Birth of a Nation, on America’s perception of slavery and Reconstruction. The movie painted the Ku Klux Klan as the savior of the South and restorer of civil order, and African Americans as evil and lusting after white women. It portrayed lynching in a positive light, despite the fact that the NAACP would in 1920 publish evidence of the lynching of 2,600 black men and women in the U.S. between 1889-1919. In response, as part of a national protest against the film, William Francis lobbied the St. Paul City Council to ban the film. Though he was not successful, his work did result in the cutting of some of the most racially offensive scenes.
William also supported Nellie as she worked to obtain 1921 passage of Minnesota’s anti-lynching bill after three African American railroad workers were unjustly accused of the rape of a white woman and lynched in Duluth in June 1920. While the police stood back, a mob violently resisted attempts to turn them back, and a large crowd of spectators looked upon the lynchings approvingly. Despite the gruesome nature of the lynchings, only three white men were convicted, and only for the crime of rioting. This incident not only caused many African Americans to leave Duluth, but represented a large stain on Minnesota’s national reputation as an enlightened state on race relations.
Nellie was also a key player in earning the right for women to vote in Minnesota. Her participation in this effort with white suffragists was particularly notable, given that the national suffrage leadership had excluded African American women from major movement efforts and even considered giving up the right to vote for them in order to secure passage of the national law.
In a strange confluence between race and gender rights in Minnesota, Clara Ueland, president of the Women’s Suffrage Association in Minnesota, decreed that suffrage chapters that planned to use Birth of a Nation as a tool to promote women’s suffrage would not be welcome in the association.
After Governor Burnquist signed Minnesota’s ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1919, Nellie launched a lobbying effort for state legislation securing the vote for women in 1921, she succeeded in securing enough votes that the Minnesota House passed the law 81-1 and the Senate 41-0.
Francis the Diplomat
Pursuing his dream of a diplomatic post, Francis wanted President Calvin Coolidge to name him U.S. Minister to Liberia when that position came open in 1926. He assembled quite a list of Minnesota and national supporters to lobby the White House to appoint him, including Mary McCleod Bethune, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Pierce Butler, and Minnesota’s governor. Among his supporters was his classmate Sen. Thomas Schall, who in his endorsement stressed how light-skinned Francis and his wife were. On July 12, 1927, President Calvin Coolidge appointed him U.S. Minister and Consul to Liberia. This position was considered crucial for American national security because Firestone Tire and Rubber Company was developing large rubber plantations in Liberia that were necessary in preparing the U.S. for military action as well as growing civilian needs for rubber.
In 1928, Secretary of State Henry Stimson instructed Francis to investigate claims that Liberian officials were involved in forced labor and slavery in Liberia. After his 9-month investigation, Francis concluded that the president, vice president and postmaster general had been accepting bribes for supporting the kidnapping of young village men for forced labor in the Spanish cacao plantations on the island of Fernando Po (Bioko Island). Francis’ report was instrumental in triggering a later League of Nations investigation that forced Liberia’s president, Charles D. B. King, and its vice president to resign in 1930.
Only weeks after this report was submitted, William Francis came down with yellow fever. Within a month, on July 15, 1929, Francis died in Monrovia, Liberia. He was hailed by Secretary of State Henry Stimson as “one of the nation’s ablest and most trusted servants.” Nellie Francis returned to her city of birth, Nashville, Tennessee, where she lived until her death in 1969.
Private Life
Born in 1869 in Indianapolis to Hattie and James Francis, William Trevane Francis came to St. Paul in 1887. In Minnesota, he was employed by the Northern Pacific Railway in various capacities, including messenger, stenographer, and finally legal department clerk, rising to temporary chief clerk in 1901 before he chose to attend law school.
William was a member of Pilgrim Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir with Nellie Griswold, who became his wife in 1893. He continued to be active in his church, serving on the Finance Committee, as Sunday School superintendent, and as leader of the women’s Bible study.
Besides their civic pursuits, William and Nellie were very devoted to the arts. William acted and sang in numerous musical productions even as a new arrival to St. Paul. Indeed, before their marriage, they co-starred in “The Magic Mirror” and “Betsy Baker.” An accomplished singer, William performed with his wife often. He also acted in plays and musical productions. Francis was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. The couple were an important part of St. Paul’s social life, hosting parties and dances throughout their marriage, and frequently lecturing on civic issues in which they were involved.
References
* The quotations in this biography are taken from the references below.
100 Who Made a Difference (William Mitchell College of Law, 2001)
Paul Nelson, Francis, William T. (1869–1929), MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society (last updated July 26, 2017), https://www.mnopedia.org/person/francis-william-t-1869-1929
Paul D. Nelson, William T. Francis, at Home and Abroad, 51 Ramsey County History, no.4, Winter 2017, at 3.
James Walsh, Play Shines Light on Dark Chapter of St. Paul History,Star Tribune (Jan. 21, 2019), https://www.startribune.com/play-shines-light-on-dark-chapter-of-st-paul-history/504631561
William D. Green, Thoughts About Commemorating the Duluth Lynchings, 77 Bench & Bar of Minn., May/June 2020, at 12.
Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Francis Have Useful Public Careers in This Community, The Appeal (St. Paul, Minn.), Aug. 24, 1918, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016810/1918-08-24/ed-1/seq-3/
Douglas R. Heidenreich, A Citizen of Fine Spirit, 18 William Mitchell Magazine, Fall 2000, at 2, https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=facsch