MANKATO — An emotional embrace between two strangers Saturday captured the spirit of reconciliation a Dakota leader and Mankato businessman first envisioned nearly four decades ago.

Both Peter Lengkeek and Mary Herbst had ancestors standing roughly where the Blue Earth County Library now stands in downtown Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862.

Lengkeek tells a story about an 8-year-old boy — his great-great-great-grandfather Joe St. John — who was watching that day as his grandfather was hanged with 37 other men during the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

Herbst’s great-grandfather, John Wesley Latourelle, was there, too, she said. He and his brother, Washington Latourelle, were soldiers in the U.S. Army. They were standing guard, surrounded by about 3,000 spectators who gathered to see the gallows lined with men who had been sentenced to death as a result of the Dakota War.

A long ride on horseback, spanning more than 300 miles, and a desire to heal the “tremendous pain and suffering” still felt by many Dakota people brought Lengkeek to Reconciliation Park Saturday. He was leading the fifth annual Dakota 38 Memorial Ride from Lower Brule, S.D., to Mankato, which ends with a ceremony near the park’s buffalo statue.

The ceremony takes place each year at about 10 a.m., the same time the 38 men were simultaneously hanged.

Herbst traveled to Mankato from her home in St. Peter. Her only desire was to tell someone at the ceremony that she understood what they were doing. That someone became Lengkeek after she heard the inspirational words he shared with the crowd gathered at the park.

When Lengkeek was done Herbst waited for the crowd to disperse. Then she embraced him. Through tears, she whispered her connection to that painful event 147 years ago.

“I told her to be strong — what happened, happened,” Lengkeek said later. “We can’t hold that against each other. Then we cried. It was beautiful.

“That’s what this is all about — to bring races together and begin the healing.”

He was echoing the same hope Amos Owen, a Dakota elder, and Bud Lawrence, a Mankato businessman, envisioned when their long friendship led to the idea of reconciliation. That vision first took shape with what has become the Mahkato Wacipi, a three-day traditional pow-wow that has annually honored the 38 Dakota each September since 1972.

Owen, who died in 1990, also started the annual Memorial Relay Run from Fort Snelling to Mankato in 1986. That run also takes place each year on Dec. 26, starting at Fort Snelling at midnight the night before and ending in Mankato around 10 a.m., or the time the hangings took place.

Runners take turns, running a mile at a time, during the 80-mile trek south.

It’s a run that has never been canceled, even when temperatures have dipped way below zero. But a winter storm that dumped a thick, heavy layer of snow across Minnesota and South Dakota Friday did cause some problems this year.

Only about a dozen runners were able to make it to Fort Snelling, said Wayne Wells, one of the run’s organizers. Usually more than 30 runners turn out.

Many young runners from South Dakota, counted on to carry the load when older runners are tired, were snowed in, Wells said. Narrow lanes and snow on the shoulders of Highway 169 also created a challenge.

“They were talking about canceling it, and we might have if we got like two feet of snow,” he said. “Our runners were pretty pumped up.”

For Ian Cook, who was participating in his third run, the day was about pride. He said he only has a basic knowledge about the broken treaties, withheld land payments and long marches to reservations that created the fuel for the regional war so many years ago.

Cook, 21, said he runs because his mother has been involved with the event for many years, and he’s proud of his heritage. The event also gives him a chance to connect with other Native Americans he wouldn’t meet at home in Duluth, he added.

“You just feel good after a good run,” he said. “It’s a tradition with good people and good friends.”

The original plan was to have the riders and runners meet at Land of Memories Park, the site of the annual pow-wow, and make the trip together to the ceremony at the hanging site. Weather and delays for both groups kept that from happening this year, but Lengkeek said he hopes the events will be joined in the future.

“The runners have been doing this for almost 30 years and we’re trying to make this one big circle,” he said. “It’s about love, friendship, compassion and the memory of our relatives who were killed.”