Tarred, Feathered, and Unbroken: Homegrown Minnesota Nativist Vigilantes

In the late summer of 1918, wartime paranoia in Rock County, Minnesota, boiled over into extralegal violence. When John T. Meints Sr., a German-American farmer and Nonpartisan League supporter, exercised his legal right to dissent by refusing to support local war-bond drives, his community labeled his neutrality as treason.We explore the harrowing story of John Meints, from the back roads of Luverne to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. It is a story of state-sanctioned mob rule, the weaponization of patriotism, and the quiet persistence of one man who demanded that equal justice under the law apply to everyone, even in the darkest moments of collective fear.