tyranny of their white masters, in Duluth,
Minnesota -- about as far north as you
could get in the Union at the time -- on a
dismal, drizzly June morning in 1920, the
John Robinson Circus rolled into town.
And what should have been a festive sum-
mer reprieve for the hard-working, blue-
collar town exploded into a powder keg of
prejudice, hatred and intoler-
ance instead, culminating in a
horrific event that would scar
this seemingly progressive city
for decades.
lynched by a mob after unsub-
stantiated rumors spread that
six African-Americans had
raped a teenage girl. No evi-
dence of the crime was found
and the murders made na-
tional headlines.
grim, no-uncertain detail in
ALAMO-DULUTH: Anatomy of a Lynching,
written by 2010 Expo Grand Prize winner
Dale Botten. The entry into the contest,
like the screenplay itself, appears to have
come about through what the screenwriter
calls "divine providence."
been a quarterfinalist before. He had
planned to spend part of his October at the
festival in Texas, "But that's when one or
more of the aforementioned mystical forces
stepped in," he says. "Something gnawing
in my gut told me that Austin would not
be a good choice... at least, not this time.
This feeling plagued me for several weeks
and I began considering other festivals."
Botten decided to skip Austin and attend
ative Screenwriting) instead, which is also
held in October in Los Angeles.
material he had submitted to other con-
tests. "I perused my script again," he ex-
plains. "Something was not right. The
opening scene did not portend the power
of the script inside. I reasoned that, since it
outcome was no surprise." This led to Bot-
ten cutting the original opening and re-
placing it with a more powerful one that
was previously at the end of the film. "So
the script I entered at the Expo was differ-
ent than the Austin version," he continues.
always on the lookout for a good story,"
Botten says. "Good stories spark a writer's
imagination and get his or her wheels turn-
ing." A friend of his wanted him to read
Michael Fedo's "The Lynching in Duluth"
and Botten was floored. "When I first read
Michael's excellent book, I got excited --
even giddy," he continues. "Here was a
tragic but amazing story that I simply could
the telling of the story consumed me. I
needed to tell this tragic story in a pro-
found way that would convey the horror
and the pathos. I had no time for other
considerations, only that it was a story I
had to tell as well as I could."
where the men were murdered and a me-
drove past this spot every day
on his way to the hospital, he
gained deeper insight into
what his script was really
about. "That's when I realized
that the story I was so focused
on was not about three
bronze statues," he says. "It
was about three real flesh-
and-blood innocent human
beings, who were murdered in
cold blood, not only by a mob
but by a whole society -- a so-
ciety that allowed intolerance
and hate to slime their way in
to control what normally
the guise of justice."
off: He is the Grand Prize winner of the
2010 Screenwriting Expo Screenplay Com-
petition, a title that comes with $20,000
cash and exposure to producers and reps in
Hollywood. Botten's says his experience
with the Expo has been worthwhile. "Had I
not won the Grand Prize, I would still have
considered my experience at the Expo valu-
able," he says. "I have had some read re-
quests and have been able to network with
some new and very good industry people."
ten. We should all be as lucky.