clay county histories

Markus Krueger | Program Director  HCSCC

Carl Griffin on stage, 1968

For months now, Minnesota State University Moorhead and the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County have been planning a historic event. Four Moorhead State Dragons – Carl Griffin, Lewis Scott, Russel Balenger, and Readus Fletcher – formed a group memoir project called The Rondo Brothers of Moorhead, and on February 27 they are returning to campus after half a century to tell their stories.  

Nine days before the event, we received tragic news. Carl Griffin passed away. 

After some thought, the remaining three decided they would still take the stage on the 27th at MSUM to tell the stories that they set out to tell. It’s certainly what Carl would have wanted. 

All four men grew up in St. Paul’s Rondo Neighborhood, a multi-ethnic community home to Minnesota’s Black middle class. But starting in 1956, when they were kids, Rondo was largely demolished to make way for I-94. The community was hit hard. When they graduated High School, these four men took that interstate to Moorhead to go to college. 

In the mid-1960s, African American students began seeking educational opportunities outside of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. At the same time, Civil Rights leaders convinced some traditionally white colleges to recruit African American students for the first time. When Carl Griffin came to Moorhead State College (now MSUM) in 1967, he was one of only seven Black students. The following year, he helped convince three friends from his neighborhood – Readus, Lewis and Russel – to join Moorhead State’s small but growing number of students of color. What was it like to be young African American students in a predominantly white town during these pivotal years of the Civil Rights Movement?   

All four went on to successful careers and became community leaders. Lewis became an award-winning elementary school principal and administrator. Readus was a civil servant important enough that St. Paul declared the day he retired Readus Fletcher Day. Russel is a St. Paul City Councilman and cofounder of The Circle of Peace Movement to end violence and promote racial healing. Carl was a journalist. 

I had the great privilege of getting to know Carl over long phone calls and a couple of in-person meetings in the last year of his life. I knew him as a gregarious man in his 70s, but his stories also let me get to know him as a 19-year-old college kid. I was always eager to hear about the history that he lived through and, being a talkative guy, he enjoyed telling the stories. At the at Moorhead State’s memorial service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Carl’s speech implored Fargo-Moorhead to do something to help the Civil Rights Movement. He was a student radical in the Peace Movement (I’ve read his FBI file). After college, he worked at the Washington Post as Watergate broke, helped organize Minnesota’s first Juneteenth Celebration, and fought to gain equal rights as a gay man. 

One might think him fearless, but Carl was too smart for that. He was scared to leave his family and his tight-knit African American community to go to an overwhelmingly white town for college. He was absolutely terrified on stage at Dr. King’s memorial (he told me he had few memories of that night). Can you imagine the fear and loneliness of being gay and Black in Moorhead in 1868? And still, he spoke out loudly. Carl wasn’t fearless. Carl was courageous. 

His passing reminds us that it is important to hear history makers when you have the opportunity. Go to www.mnstate.edu/tickets to see the Rondo Brothers of Moorhead on February 27.