Lynching of Olli Kinkkonen

Olli Kinkkonen (1881–1918) was a Finnish-American dockworker and logger. He was lynched in Duluth, Minnesota on September 18, 1918.

Death

Earlier on 9/18, Kinkkonen and five others renounced their U.S. citizenship, because they did not want to fight in World War I. A small mob calling itself the "Knights of Loyalty" formed and went searching for him. They found him in his boarding house, preparing to return to Finland. He was taken to Congdon Park where he was tarred and feathered. The local newspaper received a letter saying that Kinkkonen had been tarred and feathered to serve as "a warning to all slackers", a term used for men who refused to join the military. His body was found two weeks later hanging from a tree outside Duluth in Lester Park.^[1][2]

Duluth authorities declared his death a suicide, triggered by his humiliation at the event. His alleged murderers were never charged. Kinkkonen was buried in an unmarked grave in the indigent section of Park Hill Cemetery in Duluth, a few rows from where the victims of the 1920 Duluth lynchings would later be buried. In 1993, the Finnish American cultural society, Työmies, placed a marker on Kinkkonen's grave. It reads:

"Olli Kinkkonen. 1881 to 1918, Victim of Warmongers."^[1][2]

References