DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz marked the 100th anniversary of a painful chapter in the state's history on Monday by visiting a memorial in Duluth to three black men lynched by a white mob.

Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie were traveling circus workers accused of raping a white woman, though her doctor later found no evidence of assault. Walz connected the shame of that lynching to George Floyd's death last month in an encounter with Minneapolis police.

Walz said the state will “be defined either by the murder of George Floyd or by how we respond to the murder of George Floyd.”

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