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.\u00a0 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<\/em>,112 S. Ct. 2538 (1992), in which several teenagers burned a cross on the lawn of an African American family in 1990.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n William Francis was a St. Paul attorney who, along with his wife Nellie, was prominent in St. Paul social circles and in Minnesota\u2019s civil rights movement in the early 1920s. \u00a0\u00a0In 1924, William and Nellie purchased a home on Sargent Avenue in the Groveland Park neighborhood of St. Paul.\u00a0 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\u2019s population.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n When they learned of the purchase,\u00a0 seventy-five neighbors met at a public school to form the Cretin Improvement Association and voted that \u201ccolored persons are not wanted in their district.\u201d The head of the improvement association, Oscar Arneson, was a journalist from Norway, a printer, and the former chief clerk in the Minnesota statehouse.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.\u00a0\u00a0 On October 5, before the Francises had moved in, a giant cross was burned on their newly purchased property. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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\u2019s homes and Francis\u2019 office, and threatened them by telephone.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When the association offered to purchase the house for $1000, the Francis family declined.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n On November 1, over 200 white neighbors marched in front of the house, lighting flares as they went.\u00a0 \u00a0A second cross was burned on the property on December 5. \u00a0Francis pleaded with the NAACP for their help in December 1924, noting \u201cI am of the opinion that they do not intend to quit until some act of violence has been committed.\u201d\u00a0 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,\u00a0 William and Nellie had to hire guards to protect their house for a while.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Ultimately, William and Nellie Francis chose to stay, and they lived in their home without further violence until they moved to Liberia in 1927.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Francis took over McGee\u2019s solo law practice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.\u00a0 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\u2019 refusal to serve African Americans.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The largest verdict of its time, the judgment was overturned on appeal.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n William Francis was a lifelong Republican, participating actively in the Party.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Francis also lost a bid for the state assembly in 1912.\u00a0 In 1916, he was nominated for a state legislative seat representing the Thirty-eighth district in St. Paul but was not successful.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In 1920, Francis was chosen for the Minnesota Republican Central Committee.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Though Harding\u2019s 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.\u00a0 Francis pointed out that this argument would justify continued segregation.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Despite his differences with Harding on race, Francis served as an elector for Harding in the presidential election that year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Locally, William Francis was active in many other aspects of community life.\u00a0\u00a0 He was a director of the Union Hall Association.\u00a0 He also served on the Ramsey County Public Safety Commission and on the Mayor\u2019s Advisory Committee.\u00a0 He was also listed as a Government Appeal Agent.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n During World War I, Francis supported the war effort by doing patriotic lectures for African American draftees and raising funds to support their families.\u00a0 He joined the Ramsey County Public Safety Commission and served as a duly appointed \u201cwar orator.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Francis supported mainstream civil rights organizations, often as an officer. \u00a0He was a founder of the Minnesota chapter of the NAACP and a delegate to the National Negro Education Conference.\u00a0 \u00a0In 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. \u00a0\u00a0Francis also was credited with passage of legislation prohibiting racial discrimination by hair-dressing schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Francis\u2019 wife Nellie was a civil rights activist in her own right, and William supported her in her work.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1915, Nellie became concerned about the effect of the first Hollywood blockbuster, a 1915 film called Birth of a Nation, on America\u2019s perception of slavery and Reconstruction.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In response, as part of a national protest against the film, William Francis lobbied the St. Paul City Council to ban the film.\u00a0 Though he was not successful, his work did result in the cutting of some of the most racially offensive scenes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n William also supported Nellie as she worked to obtain 1921 passage of Minnesota\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Despite the gruesome nature of the lynchings, only three white men were convicted, and only for the crime of rioting.\u00a0 This incident not only caused many African Americans to leave Duluth, but represented a large stain on Minnesota\u2019s national reputation as an enlightened state on race relations.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Nellie was also a key player in earning the right for women to vote in Minnesota. \u00a0Her 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\u00a0in order to secure passage of the national law.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In a strange confluence between race and gender rights in Minnesota, Clara Ueland, president of the Women\u2019s Suffrage Association in Minnesota, decreed that suffrage chapters that planned to use Birth of a Nation<\/em> as a tool to promote women\u2019s suffrage would not be welcome in the association.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n After Governor Burnquist signed Minnesota\u2019s ratification of the 19th<\/sup> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 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.\u00a0 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\u2019s governor.\u00a0 Among his supporters was his classmate Sen. Thomas Schall, who in his endorsement stressed how light-skinned Francis and his wife were.\u00a0 \u00a0On 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.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n In 1928, Secretary of State Henry Stimson instructed Francis to investigate claims that Liberian officials were involved in forced labor and slavery in Liberia.\u00a0 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\u2019 report was instrumental in triggering a later League of Nations investigation that forced Liberia\u2019s president, Charles D. B. King, and its vice president to resign in 1930.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Only weeks after this report was submitted, William Francis came down with yellow fever.\u00a0 Within a month, on July 15, 1929, Francis died in Monrovia, Liberia.\u00a0 He was hailed by Secretary of State Henry Stimson as \u201cone of the nation\u2019s ablest and most trusted servants.\u201d\u00a0 Nellie Francis returned to her city of birth, Nashville, Tennessee, where she lived until her death in 1969.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Born in 1869 in Indianapolis to Hattie and James Francis, William Trevane Francis came to St. Paul in 1887. \u00a0In Minnesota, he was employed by the\u00a0Northern Pacific Railway<\/a> 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.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n William was a member of Pilgrim Baptist Church, where he sang in the choir with Nellie Griswold, who became his wife in 1893. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0He continued to be active in his church, serving on the Finance Committee, as Sunday School superintendent, and as leader of the women\u2019s Bible study.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Besides their civic pursuits, William and Nellie were very devoted to the arts.\u00a0\u00a0 William acted and sang in numerous musical productions even as a new arrival to St. Paul.\u00a0\u00a0 Indeed, before their marriage, they co-starred in \u201cThe Magic Mirror\u201d and \u201cBetsy Baker.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0An\u00a0 accomplished singer, William performed with his wife often.\u00a0 He also acted in plays and musical productions.\u00a0 \u00a0Francis was a member of\u00a0Alpha Phi Alpha<\/a>\u00a0fraternity.\u00a0 The couple were an important part of St. Paul\u2019s social life, hosting parties and dances throughout their marriage, and frequently lecturing on civic issues in which they were involved.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n * The quotations in this biography are taken from the references below.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n 100 Who Made a Difference (William Mitchell College of Law, 2001)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Paul Nelson, Francis, William T. (1869\u20131929),<\/em> MNopedia, Minnesota Historical Society (last updated July 26, 2017), https:\/\/www.mnopedia.org\/person\/francis-william-t-1869-1929<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Paul D. Nelson, William T. Francis, at Home and Abroad<\/em>, 51\u00a0Ramsey County History<\/em>, no.4, Winter 2017, at 3.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n James Walsh, Play Shines Light on Dark Chapter of St. Paul History<\/em>,Star Tribune (Jan. 21, 2019), https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/play-shines-light-on-dark-chapter-of-st-paul-history\/504631561<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n William D. Green, Thoughts About Commemorating the Duluth Lynchings<\/em>, 77 Bench & Bar of Minn., May\/June 2020, at 12.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Francis Have Useful Public Careers in This Community<\/em>, The Appeal (St. Paul, Minn.)<\/em>, Aug. 24, 1918, http:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/lccn\/sn83016810\/1918-08-24\/ed-1\/seq-3\/<\/a> \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Douglas R. Heidenreich, A Citizen of Fine Spirit<\/em>, 18 William Mitchell Magazine, Fall 2000, at 2, https:\/\/open.mitchellhamline.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1109&context=facsch<\/a> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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.\u00a0 Even today in Minnesota, African Americans are not free from the scourge of cross-burning, as evidenced in … <\/p>\nEarly Public Career<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Political and Community Life<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
A Couple of Racial Advocates<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Francis the Diplomat<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Private Life<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
References<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n