by Greg Poferl
Arthur Lee was a WWI, African American veteran who worked at the Minneapolis Post Office and moved into an all-white neighborhood at 4600 Columbus Ave in 1931. His union co-workers, joined together and surrounded the Lee home for weeks to protect Arthur, his wife Edith, and their little daughter Mary when police failed to fully protect the family from the racist mobs that numbered around 3,000 and tried to force the family from their home.
Arthur Lee’s grandson, Robert Arthur Lee Forman recalls, “Lena Smith, the first female black attorney in Minnesota, who represented the Lees, made a public plea through the newspaper, for anyone who knew Arthur and Edith to come to their aid. World War I service veterans, U.S. mail carriers and service guards, primarily white, showed up to protect my family. They literally surrounded the house, holding hands, to protect this house and avoided what truly could have been a horrific tragedy.”
This is an “untold story,” brought from the past to the present by the special exhibit Gathering Places at the Minnesota History Center in the early 2000s, through puppet theater by the Solidarity Kids Theater, produced by the Labor Education Service, University of Minnesota and the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), by a special neighborhood remembrance and celebration in 2011, and an award winning National History Day Exhibit in 2014 by Cretin-Derham Hall sophomores Molly Hynes and Emily Voigt.
In 2011, the Lee home was placed on the Minnesota Register of Historic Places on July 14, 2014 through the efforts of the Field Regina Northrop Neighborhood Group and was commemorated at their neighborhood celebration. This event showed how the courage of the Lee family, the efforts of Lena Smith and the solidarity of letter carriers and postal workers were an inspiration and an enduring legacy in the racially diverse neighborhood.
Greg Poferl is an active, retired APWU member who currently teaches at Cretin Derham-Hall and works part-time at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, MN.
Remembering the Lee Family
“My grandmother and grandmother never really spoke of this incident,” he said. “This story unfolded to me like a puzzle.” – Arthur Lee’s grandson, Robert Arthur Lee Forman
“When they arrived, they found members of Branch 9 of the National Association of Letter Carriers in uniform standing in a line in front of the Lee home, re-enacting how Arthur Lee’s co-workers from the post office came to his aid 80 years ago.”
“Lena Smith, the first female black attorney in Minnesota, who represented the Lees, ‘made a public plea through the newspaper, for anyone who knew Arthur and Edith to come to their aid,’ Forman said. ‘World War I service veterans, U.S. mail carriers and service guards, primarily white, showed up to protect my family.’
‘They literally surrounded the house, holding hands, to protect this house,’ Forman said, and ‘avoided what truly could have been a horrific tragedy.'”
“The plaque now at the site notes: ‘According to Ann Juergens, attorney and professor of William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, ‘since the Lees’ courageous stand, Minnesota has not seen white mob demonstrations against housing integration.'”
The UpTake: Thousands Honor Lee Family Courage In Face of Racist Minneapolis Mob
“The July 16 commemoration concluded with the unveiling of a monument at the corner of 46th and Columbus, including a sculpture with a likeness of Arthur Lee, a plaque telling the story, and a quote from Arthur: ‘Nobody asked me to move out when I was in France fighting in mud and water for this country. I came out here to make this house my home.'”
“A bunch of my friends are black, like my best friend Kelsey. And 80 years ago we wouldn’t be able to be friends because now I live a block away from where the Lees lived. So 80 years ago, neither my friend Kelsey or my other best friend Frances would be allowed to be my friend.” – A Field School student of today, Sydney Okeson, shared what she learned about the Lees’ story from researching her fifth grade school project.
“Robert Forman (center) and his children (Edith and Arthur Lee’s great-grandchildren), Remi Viola Lee Forman (left) and Ryon Lee Guthrie Forman (right).”
*Photo from the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation