Tonei Lang: West St. Paul’s Civil Rights Crusader and the 1965 Cross Burning

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Editor’s note: This story is based on the article “The Summer Cross Burnings of ‘65” by Wendy Lane that appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of Over the Years, a publication of the Dakota County Historical Society (DCHS), as well as additional research from DCHS. To read the full story, print copies of Over the Years can be purchased online or at the Lawshe Museum in South St. Paul for $2.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s came to West St. Paul with a mix of inspiration and hate. White local resident Tonei Lang traveled to the South multiple times and hosted Black civil rights workers in her home—prompting a cross burning and bomb threats.

Bernard and Tonei Lang moved to West St. Paul in 1959. In 1965, they had seven children, ranging in age from one to 18. They joined the Catholic Interracial Council in 1956 and worked on a number of issues, including housing, the Civil Rights Act, and interracial gatherings (causing one parent to complain they were “contaminating” white children).

“I wanted to see what was going on so I could bring it to the attention of the people of West St. Paul. I live here, and I figured if somebody from this community went down there, it would make what was happening down South more real to the people here, bring it into their kitchens. It’s our problem too.”

Tonei Lang, West St. Paul Booster, March 24, 1965

Race Relations in West St. Paul

West St. Paul in the 1960s had a different demographic makeup:

• 1970 census: 18,800 total population, 99% white, 0.13% Black
• 2020 census: 21,000 total population, 66% white, 6% Black

During the 1960s, a Black civil rights worker from Mississippi staying with the Langs specifically called out West St. Paul: “The people are doing nothing to improve race relations,” said Robert Blow during an event at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church sponsored by the West St. Paul Human Relations Council. “When I walk down the street they peer out their windows as if I were a strange monster. I hear the word ‘[racial slur]’.”

Blow recounted his efforts to find an apartment in West St. Paul: “As soon as a landlord saw me, the vacancy he had reported 15 minutes earlier on the telephone had mysteriously been filled.”

The Langs found an ally a few blocks south in Marcelle Diedrich. Tonei Lang asked Diedrich, who was white, if a Black friend could stay with them. He stayed only a week, but the Diedrich house was egged during that time. 

Diedrich echoed Blow’s complaints about housing discrimination, describing an uproar over a rumor that a Black family would move to Westchester Drive (which never materialized).

“The majority of people were not ready to accept Black people.”

Marcelle Diedrich, Over the Years, Summer 2025

Despite blatant racism, some pushed for progress. Another group hosted civil rights icon John Lewis at Augustana Lutheran Church in 1966.

Traveling South for Civil Rights

As violence erupted in response to the Civil Rights Movement, Tonei Lang traveled south to show her support. She attended the funeral of James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister killed by a mob in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday. 

As Tonei Lang planned the trip, her husband Bernard said absolutely not, citing the danger and cost. But Tonei raised the money, faked sick to skip an event the couple planned to attend, and had a friend drive her to the airport after Bernard had left.

Tonei called Bernard when she arrived safely in Selma, and he accepted her decision and wished her luck.

“This is the first time I have ever gone against my husband’s wishes in a major decision,” said Lang, “but this was something very necessary to me.”

A week later Lang returned to Alabama for the funeral of white civil rights worker and mother Viola Liuzzo. Lang brought two of her children with her, joining other mothers with children who pushed back on criticism that Liuzzo had no business doing civil rights work as a mother.

“You bet she had business to do so,” Lang said in a Minneapolis Tribune story. “This is not just a Negro revolution. If we don’t take a stand, who will?”

A half-hour after Lang returned home, she received a threatening phone call. “And here I thought I was safe, back in Minnesota again,” Lang said in a Minneapolis Star article. “But we’ve got bigots, toо.”

The Rock Throwing Incident

In August 1965, the Langs were hosting three Black young people from Greenwood, Mississippi—Rosemary Freeman, 18, Charlie Mae King, 20, and John Handy, 21. They were raising money to support 25 plantation workers who were striking for higher wages. The three participated in marches and rallies, drawing news coverage and negative attention.

The harassment started at 2 a.m. with loud knocking on the front door. Bernard Lang answered the door and told the visitor to come back at a more reasonable time. 

“Then five young men started running around our house shouting things like, ‘We know those [racial slur] are in there, send them on out,” Tonei Lang said in a Minneapolis Tribune story.

Then a rock crashed through the kitchen window, missing Bernard’s head by two inches.

“Harrassment like this has been going on for a year and a half—nasty phone calls, garbage mail, signs and crosses on our lawn—but this is the first time we had to call the police,” Tonei Lang said.

The Cross Burning Incident

The next night, between 12:30 and 1 a.m., a cross was burned in the backyard of the Lang’s home at 958 Seminole Avenue. Police described it as a four-foot-high, professionally made cross.

• Police: While police had increased patrols in the area with their lone squad car, a prank call had lured the police to another part of the city so the cross could be put in the Lang’s yard.
• Response: West St. Paul Mayor Robert Callahan urged action, saying “We just won’t have this kind of thing,” and pushed for criminal charges even though the Langs didn’t want to press charges. But he also dismissively described the assailants as “just a little older than juvenile delinquents.”
• More threats: After the incident, the harassment only continued with threatening calls and two bomb threats.
• Leaving town: The Mississippi civil rights workers left a few days later after raising $600 during their trip, though not because of the back-to-back nights of harassment: “They’re used to much more than this,” said Bernard Lang.
• Charges: Five white young men—Jerome Bartz, 18, of West St. Paul; Eugene Befort, 22 of West St. Paul; Keith Johnson, 23 of West St. Paul; Peter LaChapelle, 19, of West St. Paul; and Dennis Marsch, 23 of St. Paul—were ultimately arrested and found guilty of disorderly conduct in the incidents. They each served 10 days in jail and claimed the incident was a “prank.”
• Not just pranks: An anonymous letter to the editor in the St. Paul Sun sought to underline the seriousness of the incidents: “This current rash of cross burnings in St. Paul, and an open admission of Ku Klux Klan influence, cannot be brushed off as teen-age pranks or the work of misguided young adults. History has proved that youth is a fertile field in which to plant the seeds of religious and racial hatred. When a trend toward destruction of human values goes unrecognized, history repeats itself, too often with dire consequences.”

“I guess I fooled myself thinking that West St. Paul is civilized and that things like this wouldn’t happen here,” Tonei Lang said.

Neighbor Reaction

While some neighbors, like Diedrich, were supportive, many others were less than neighborly. The West St. Paul Booster talked to neighbors on Seminole Avenue, noting that older neighbors seemed less concerned, admitting to “a little fear” but that Lang’s efforts “haven’t bothered us.” But younger families—some of whom told their children not to play with the Lang’s children— had stronger feelings they shared “emphatically, albeit anonymously.”

• Friendly, but not: “If you ask me, she’s doing more damage than good. I’ve got colored people I’m very friendly with but I don’t invite them to my home and they don’t invite me to theirs.”
• Asking for it: “I don’t excuse those boys for doing that sort of thing. But, on the other hand, I think she’s wrong in provoking it. In other words, she’s asking for it.”
• The plague: “She’s doing nothing but asking for trouble. She’s just a radical nut. I’ve got nothing against the Negro, but people like this… When she started this it was almost like the plague had invaded the neighborhood.”

The Civil Rights Workers

The three civil rights workers staying with the Langs had endured worse and went on to make significant contributions:

• Rosemary Freeman came to Minnesota as a teenager on a fundraising tour for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She returned to attend the University of Minnesota and with other students led a sit-in and occupation of Morrilll Hall that led to the creation of the University’s African American & African Studies Department.
• John Handy was a volunteer coordinator for the Mississippi Project in Greenwood, Mississippi. He created a running catalog of violent intimidation civil rights workers faced during Freedom Summer, including burned churches, bombed houses, false arrests, shootings, slashed tires, verbal harassment, phone threats, stoning, beatings, broken windows, and cross burnings.
• Charlie Mae King (possibly known as Endesha Ida Mae Holland) joined SNCC and was jailed 13 times—including a stint at the infamous Parchman prison. Her mother was killed in a suspicious fire in her family’s home—she believed the Ku Klux Klan firebombed the house in retaliation for her civil rights efforts. She went on to earn a doctorate in American studies and helped launch an African American studies department.

“You know where I’m getting the courage? I’m getting it from the acid burns on the feet of the civil rights workers I had here at the house from Mississippi a few weeks ago. I’m getting it from the little old Negro lady with five children who invited me in when I made the march in Selma, Alabama last spring. I’m getting it from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party worker Ida Holland who was here last week. Her house was set afire by a white man right before she came, and her crippled mother died of burns.”

Tonei Lang, West St. Paul Booster, Aug. 25, 1965

Obituary: Tonei Lang died in 2012, then living in Southeast Minneapolis. Her obituary said donations could be sent to the Southern Poverty Law Center. She requested no funeral service, but there would be a kegger at her house.

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