Tuesday, July 29, 2025

The Lee Family Case and Lena Olive Smith’s Fight Against Housing Discrimination in 1930s Minneapolis a Deep Research Report

 Lee Family Housing Discrimination Case and Lena Smith's Legal Advocacy

The Lee Family Case and Lena Olive Smith’s Fight Against Housing Discrimination in 1930s Minneapolis

Racial Covenants and the Lee Family’s Home Purchase (1931)

In the late 1920s, Minneapolis was marked by racially discriminatory housing practices. In many neighborhoods, white homeowners made formal or informal agreements not to sell or rent to non-white buyersen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. One such area was the Field neighborhood in South Minneapolis, where in 1927 a local association gathered hundreds of signatures pledging to keep the area exclusively whiteen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. It was against this backdrop that Arthur Lee – a Black World War I veteran and postal worker – and his wife Edith purchased a small bungalow at 4600 Columbus Avenue in June 1931minneapolismn.goven.wikipedia.org. The Lees bought the home for about $4,700 and moved in with their young daughter, becoming the only African-American family in an otherwise all-white enclaveen.wikipedia.orgminneapolismn.gov.

Almost immediately, neighbors reacted with alarm. The local Eugene Field Neighborhood Association offered to buy the house back from the Lees at a profit (reportedly offering $300–$500 more than the purchase price) if they would leave the areaspokesman-recorder.com. This was accompanied by veiled threats of trouble if the Lees refused. Arthur and Edith Lee, determined to keep the home they had earned, declined all offers to sellspokesman-recorder.comspokesman-recorder.com. Their refusal set the stage for one of Minnesota’s ugliest episodes of housing-related racial hostility during that era.

Mob Protests and the So-Called “Count” Trial

By early July 1931, white hostility toward the Lee family exploded into open intimidation. Neighbors began gathering in front of the Lee house nightly, shouting racial epithets and demanding the family leave. The crowds rapidly swelled from dozens to hundreds and then thousands of people. Over several nights between July 11 and July 16, an “unruly mob” of up to 3,000–4,000 white protestors encircled the home, hurling rocks, paint, garbage, and even feces at the housestartribune.comspokesman-recorder.com. Windows were shattered by stones, the porch and garage were splattered with black paint, and signs bearing racial slurs littered the yardstartribune.comen.wikipedia.org. Police were dispatched to the scene but were undermanned and initially hesitant to arrest the agitators; on one early night of the disturbance, an officer merely warned the crowd their gathering was unlawful and suggested a meeting with the mayor instead of taking firm actionen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. Minneapolis Mayor William Anderson claimed he “could not interfere,” effectively leaving the family’s fate in the hands of the mob and a thin line of police guardsen.wikipedia.org.

Arthur and Edith Lee’s bungalow at 4600 Columbus Ave. South (photographed in July 1931) became a flashpoint of racial conflict. Night after night, throngs of white residents converged on the house to menace the Black family inside, throwing stones and shouting threats until police formed a cordon to hold the mob backstartribune.comminneapolismn.gov.

Amid this tense standoff, the Lees initially relied on a white attorney, H.E. Maag. Maag urged them to accept the buyout and move for their own safetyminnpost.com. In fact, a committee of neighbors had raised roughly $5,000 to compensate the Lees for leaving, and Maag indicated Arthur Lee was willing to “consider moving” if treated fairlyminnpost.com. However, as the situation escalated, the Lees reconsidered. They sought help from the Minneapolis branch of the NAACP, which in the early 1930s was becoming more assertive in challenging discriminationhennepinhistory.orgwww3.mnhs.org. The NAACP steered the family to Lena Olive Smith, who was not only the first Black woman licensed to practice law in Minnesota but also the president of the Minneapolis NAACP at the timewww3.mnhs.orgminnpost.com.

Smith’s approach differed sharply from the accommodationist advice the Lees had received. She firmly advised the family not to move, despite the personal danger and stress they were experiencingminnpost.com. To Lena Smith, the principle at stake was vital: “that African-American people may live wherever European-American people live,” as she later explainedminnpost.com. Conceding to the mob’s demands would only validate mob violence. “It would be unwise and unfair to this man to be forced to leave his home under the circumstances,” Smith argued, “and agreeing to move out would have no effect other than to convince the mob that their action has been successful.”minnpost.com With that conviction, Arthur and Edith Lee fired their first lawyer and retained Lena O. Smith as counsel, resolving to stand their ground.

Once on the case, Lena Olive Smith took swift legal and advocacy steps to defend the Lees’ rights. She immediately met with Minneapolis Police Chief William Meehan and other city officials, pressing them to protect the Lee family more diligentlyminnpost.com. She also appealed to Minnesota’s Governor, Floyd Olson, urging that the National Guard be put on notice to intervene if local authorities could not control the situationminnpost.com. Smith then issued an emphatic public statement – printed in the local press – declaring that “Mr. Lee will retain his home. He never agreed to sell the property, reports to the contrary notwithstanding. As far as Mr. Lee is concerned, there will be no further negotiations with any committee of citizens… The police have agreed to give ample protection to the property.”npgallery.nps.gov Mayor Anderson and Chief Meehan, she noted, were informed that the Lees had no intention of leavingnpgallery.nps.gov. This defiant stance, backed by the prospect of state intervention, put city officials on notice that the eyes of the NAACP and the broader community were watching.

Under increased pressure, the Minneapolis police finally took a stronger role in dispersing the crowds. World War I veterans from the Black community – including Arthur Lee’s colleagues from the Postal Service – also organized armed patrols to help guard the home from attackminnpost.comspokesman-recorder.com. The combined show of resolve had an effect: after nearly a month of nightly hostility, the mob gradually stopped congregating at the Lee residenceminnpost.com. By late July 1931, the worst of the crisis had passed without the Lees ceding their home. As Arthur Lee poignantly told a reporter during the ordeal, “Nobody asked me to move out when I was in France fighting in mud and water for this country… All I want is my home, and I have a right to establish one and live in it.”spokesman-recorder.comspokesman-recorder.com His words underscored the painful irony that a Black war veteran had to battle for basic rights on the home front.

It should be noted that the confrontation never resulted in a formal courtroom trial – despite the user’s reference to a possible “Count trial.” The Lee family’s struggle played out through police protection, community intervention, and media coverage, rather than a definitive legal case that produced trial transcripts or judicial opinions. Contemporary accounts do not mention any single criminal or civil trial arising directly from the July 1931 events, and no transcript of a “Lee case” trial has surfaced in public archives. In effect, Lena Smith won a de facto legal victory by forcing Minneapolis authorities to uphold the law and protect the Lees’ right to reside in their homewww3.mnhs.orgminnpost.com. This proactive legal defense – rather than any verdict in court – secured the immediate goal of outlasting the mob. Smith “successfully protected the Lees’ right to stay in their house,” as summarized by the Minnesota Historical Societywww3.mnhs.org. The case stands as an early example of using legal pressure and community solidarity to resist housing discrimination, at a time when no explicit fair housing laws yet existed.

Aftermath and Contemporary Commentary

Thanks to Lena Smith’s intervention, Arthur and Edith Lee remained in their Columbus Avenue home for the time being. Police maintained a presence on the block for over a year, even escorting the Lees’ young daughter Mary to and from elementary school for safetyen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. However, the family’s ordeal did not entirely end with the dispersal of the crowds. In the months that followed, they continued to endure sporadic harassment and vandalism. According to family recollections, unknown intruders occasionally pounded on their doors at night; paint was splashed on the house again; windows were broken; tragically, the Lees’ pet dog was even killed during this period of intimidationhennepinhistory.orghennepinhistory.org. The strain took its toll. By late 1933 – roughly two years after the initial incident – the Lees decided to move out. They sold 4600 Columbus Ave and relocated to a neighborhood in South Minneapolis that already had a higher Black population and thus a more welcoming environmentminneapolismn.goven.wikipedia.org. As Arthur Lee’s grandson later noted, the family “intentionally took their time” in moving – they stayed as long as they reasonably could, to make the point that they would not be run out by bigotryspokesman-recorder.com. In the end, it was Edith Lee who persuaded her husband that it was time to go, and Arthur conceded to her wishesspokesman-recorder.comspokesman-recorder.com. Although their residence at the Columbus Avenue house lasted only a few years, the Lees’ courageous stand became a powerful symbol in Minneapolis history.

The Lee case drew substantial news coverage and commentary, both in Minnesota and nationally, especially after the fact. At the height of the unrest in mid-July 1931, Minneapolis newspapers broke what had been an initial media silence and reported bluntly on the mob’s actions. The Minneapolis Tribune ran a front-page headline, “HOME STONED IN RACE ROW,” on July 15, 1931, detailing how angry crowds were pelting the Lee home with rocksminnpost.comminnpost.com. The next day, another headline read, “Crowd of 3,000 Renews Attack on Negroes’ Home,” as the violence escalated despite city leaders’ futile attempts at a “peaceful settlement”startribune.comstartribune.com. These contemporary reports convey the astonishment (and, in some quarters, the disturbingly carnival-like atmosphere) surrounding the events. One account described the scene as if the Lees’ beleaguered house were a besieged fortress: “From the windows of his darkened home, Lee and his friends looked out, as from a barricaded fortress, on a sullen, angry semi-circle of humanity… They heard stones strike against the house and heard windows crash.”startribune.comstartribune.com

African-American media and organizations offered their own perspective. The NAACP’s national magazine, The Crisis, published an exposé titled “A Roman Holiday in Minneapolis” (October 1931) by Chatwood Hall, which lambasted the city’s handling of the episodelims.minneapolismn.gov. The article’s subtitle referred to “the partially suppressed news of an incipient race riot in the Northwest,” suggesting that local authorities initially downplayed the gravity of the situationlims.minneapolismn.govlims.minneapolismn.gov. Hall’s account brought national attention to what had happened in Minneapolis, framing it as a stark example of northern racism and mob mentality. Likewise, the Black-owned Minneapolis Spokesman (established in 1934, a few years after the incident) and its sister paper the St. Paul Recorder would later revisit the Lee story as part of the Twin Cities’ civil rights legacyen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. Decades on, historians have noted that the Lee family’s stand, backed by Lena Smith and the NAACP, effectively marked the last time a white mob in Minnesota openly formed to prevent an African-American family from moving into a neighborhoodywcastpaul.org. The moral and symbolic victory of 1931 – while incomplete since the Lees ultimately left – showed that such racist intimidation could be confronted and would not easily succeed again.

Notably, no members of the mob faced serious legal consequences for the violence at the Lee home. Although police rescued one motorcycle officer who was pulled from his bike by rioters and at least threatened arrests on the worst nights, there is no record of a large-scale prosecution for the incidenten.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. This underscores the context of the time: there were no strong legal protections for civil rights in housing, and local officials were reluctant to aggressively prosecute racial hatred. It was the resolve of individuals like the Lees and Lena Smith, plus community allies (Black and white) who physically stood guard, that brought the episode to an end. In retrospect, the Lee case has been recognized through historical markers and inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, precisely because it highlights patterns of housing discrimination and the kind of grassroots resistance that predated the civil rights movement by decadesen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. Modern commemorations – such as an 80th anniversary ceremony in 2011 – have honored Arthur and Edith Lee’s courage, ensuring that this painful chapter is not forgottenminnpost.comspokesman-recorder.com.

Lena Olive Smith’s NAACP Leadership and Legacy

Lena Olive Smith (shown circa 1920s) was Minnesota’s first African-American woman lawyer and a leading civil rights attorney. Admitted to the bar in 1921, she was the only Black woman practicing law in the state until 1945www3.mnhs.org. Smith rose to prominence through the NAACP, becoming the Minneapolis branch’s first female president in the early 1930s and chairing its Legal Redress Committee, where she pursued equal rights cases and “proactive” use of the courts to challenge discriminationwww3.mnhs.orgnpgallery.nps.gov.

Beyond the Lee family incident, Lena O. Smith’s career was defined by tireless advocacy for civil rights in Minnesota. Some of her notable achievements and cases include:

  • NAACP Leadership: Smith helped found the Minneapolis Urban League in 1925 and by 1930 was elected president of the Minneapolis NAACP – the first woman to hold that officewww3.mnhs.org. She later served on the NAACP’s national board and, as head of the joint Minneapolis–St. Paul NAACP Legal Redress Committee, became a major force in pursuing civil rights through the legal systemwww3.mnhs.orgnpgallery.nps.gov. Colleagues described her as an unflinching, outspoken champion; a Bar Association memorial later hailed her as “the most vocal, valiant and aggressive fighter for the civil rights of minorities in Minnesota” during the 1920s–30shennepinhistory.org.

  • Challenging Public Accommodations Discrimination: In the mid-1930s, Smith brought lawsuits against businesses that segregated or refused service to Black patrons. For example, she fought practices at a White Castle restaurant and at the upscale Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis that denied equal service to African Americanswww3.mnhs.org. In a 1939 case, she won a judgment against the Nicollet Hotel on behalf of a Black man who had been refused service during a mixed-race convention. The court awarded modest damages (ordering the hotel to pay $25 plus over $300 in legal costs) – a remarkable legal victory in that erahennepinhistory.org. The presiding judge, while musing about the unsettled state of civil rights law, nonetheless enforced Minnesota’s statutes prohibiting racial discrimination in public venueshennepinhistory.orghennepinhistory.org. Smith also helped end the enforced segregation of Black moviegoers at Minneapolis’s Pantages Theatre in the 1930s, pushing the venue to abandon its practice of confining African Americans to a designated section of the balconywww3.mnhs.org.

  • Fighting Police Brutality and Racist Violence: Smith did not shy away from confronting law enforcement abuse. In 1937, she led an NAACP investigation into the beating of an African-American man, Curtis Jordan, by two off-duty Minneapolis police detectiveshennepinhistory.org. She organized a group of 20 eyewitnesses to testify and demanded the officers’ suspension. Although a municipal judge ultimately dismissed Jordan’s case (reflecting the challenges of pursuing justice against police at the time), sources note that Smith “won the case for Jordan” in the sense of public vindicationwww3.mnhs.org. She certainly succeeded in drawing official scrutiny to police misconduct. Earlier, in 1931, Smith had also been “prosecuting attorney” (in a private capacity) in the trial of a white assailant who shot a Black man during a clash in rural Minnesota, securing a conviction on lesser chargesreddit.com. These efforts demonstrated her willingness to use the courts to demand accountability for racially motivated violence.

  • Advocacy Against Racist Media and Education Policies: In 1940, Lena Smith spearheaded a protest against the University of Minnesota’s screening of “The Birth of a Nation.” The infamous 1915 film glorified the Ku Klux Klan and vilified African Americans; Smith organized pickets and public outcry to condemn the university’s endorsement of such racist propagandahennepinhistory.org. Decades earlier, in the 1920s, she had also challenged segregated housing policies at the University, opposing university president Lotus Coffman’s segregation of student housing by raceopen.mitchellhamline.edu. Through these actions, Smith positioned herself as a relentless voice for dignity – not only in housing and public life but in the cultural arena as well.

Lena Olive Smith practiced law in Minneapolis for over 45 years, continuing well into the 1960s. She built a reputation as a tough, savvy lawyer who often took cases other attorneys avoided, frequently working pro bono for the NAACP or for Black clients who had few resourcesmitchellhamline.edu. In 1939, she was recognized in Who’s Who Among Women Lawyershennepinhistory.orgwww3.mnhs.org. She maintained an extensive law library in her office and was active in local bar associations, despite the double barriers of race and gender in her professionwww3.mnhs.org. Community members remembered her as fearless and unyielding; civil rights leader Nellie Stone Johnson recalled that Smith was “the most aggressive and vocal civil rights lawyer of the time” in Minnesotahennepinhistory.org.

Smith’s legal work helped lay groundwork for later civil rights advances in Minnesota. Her successes – from preserving the Lee family’s home rights in 1931, to securing equal access to restaurants, hotels, and theaters – were precursors to the broader civil rights movement. Historian Ann Juergens, who wrote a comprehensive profile of Smith, noted that Lena Olive Smith and the NAACP formed “a spirited partnership in the public interest” during the interwar years, fighting to “live with dignity” in an era of pervasive discriminationopen.mitchellhamline.eduopen.mitchellhamline.edu. Indeed, Lena O. Smith is now recognized as a pioneer of civil rights in Minnesota, a woman who used her law degree as a weapon against Jim Crow-style practices far north of the Mason-Dixon Line. She continued advocating for equality until her death in 1966, witnessing the dawn of the national Civil Rights Movement that would echo many of the same battles she had engaged in long before. Her legacy endures in Minneapolis: her own former residence on 5th Avenue (where she lived and ran her law office) is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the story of the Lee family – and Lena Smith’s role in it – is taught as a key chapter in the city’s historyhennepinhistory.orgen.wikipedia.org.

Conclusion

The Arthur and Edith Lee case of 1931, though not a traditional court trial, became a crucible of racial justice in Minneapolis. It revealed the extent of Northern segregationist sentiment while also showcasing the power of legal resistance and community solidarity. Trial transcripts of this incident are elusive – likely because the “battle” was fought in the streets and in negotiations rather than in a courtroom – but we have a rich record of period journalism and commentary. Newspapers like the Minneapolis Tribune documented the mob’s furystartribune.com, while Black publications and NAACP outlets decried the situation as a shameful “race riot” in the Northlims.minneapolismn.gov. Lena Olive Smith’s own words to the press, vowing that “Mr. Lee will retain his home,” ring down through the years as a declaration that the rule of law would not bow to the rule of the mobnpgallery.nps.gov.

In the end, the Lees’ courage to buy a home wherever they chose, and Lena Smith’s courage to defend them, made a lasting impact. Their story anticipated the open-housing struggles that would grip America in later decades. As a Black attorney in the 1930s, Lena Olive Smith demonstrated how a committed civil rights lawyer could leverage both the legal system and public pressure to combat racial injustice, even in the absence of strong civil rights statutes. Her career with the NAACP paved the way for future legal giants and grassroots activists. The Lee family’s former house on Columbus Avenue still stands today – now an honored historic landmark – reminding Minneapolis that ordinary people, backed by principled advocates, can challenge even the most entrenched discriminationen.wikipedia.orgen.wikipedia.org. The legacy of the Lee case and Lena Olive Smith serves as an early beacon in Minnesota’s journey toward fair housing and equal rights for all.

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