Penning Thoughts

Springfield, Illinois, the capital city and hometown of Abraham Lincoln, is now also notorious for the unconscionable July slaying of young Sonya Massey - an innocent, Black mother - by a white law enforcement officer, who shot her in the face, as he had threatened to do.

Ironically, Springfield is also the city President Biden on August 16 proclaimed the establishment of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument. It will mark the 1908 atrocity in Springfield that had shocked the nation and during which white mobs of local citizens lynched two Black men and torched dozens of Black homes and businesses.

Six months later on Lincoln’s 100th birthday, as a direct result of this white race attack in Lincoln’s hometown, the NAACP was established in New York City.

The “riot” (actually a massacre of Black people) occurred 116 years ago this month in the city Abraham Lincoln called home, and from which he traveled to take the oath of office in 1861.

On August 17, 1908, however, Springfield was engulfed in the smoldering aftermath of two days and nights of white racist rage, lynching a 65 year old Black barber and a disabled 80 year-old Black entrepreneur, while other African Americans were pulled from street cars and shops and beaten. Unchecked mob arson burned dozens of Black-owned homes and businesses; while hundreds fled the city In terror, but faced rejection and violence in towns where they sought refuge.

News of Springfield’s racial destruction spread across the country, as seen in these newspaper headlines:

ILLINOIS MOBS KILL AND BURN
- Race riots are raging here as the result of an attempt to lynch two negro prisoners in the county jail. … “The sky over the east end of Springfield was aglow … “

— The New York Times reported, page 1, August 15, 1908

SECOND LYNCHING IN SPRINGFIELD’S RIOTS
…Brigade of Militia Fails to Check Mob - “Lincoln’s city scene of the Bitterest Race War seen in Years”

— The Washington Post, page 1, August 16,1908

ANOTHER NEGRO LYNCHED BY MOB IN SPRINGFIELD

— St Louis Post-Dispatch, Page 1, August 16, 1908

RACE HATRED FLAMES IN ILLINOIS CAPITAL; MOB LAW ENTHRONED

— The Pensecola Journal, Page 1, Aug 16, 1908

Bayonets of 3,000 Troops Hold Springfield Mobs at Bay

— The San Francisco Call, Page 1, August 17, 1908

SMOLDERING VOLCANO OF RACE HATRED ON VERGE OF ANOTHER ERUPTION
Springfield Apprehends More Trouble

— The Pittsburg Post, page 1, August 17, 1908

Wild Work of Mobs in Race Rioting Which for Three Days Has Gripped Springfield, Illinois

— The Philadelphia Inquirer, page 1, August 18, 1908

How did the conflagration begin?

On the hot summer evening of August 14, 1908, a white woman, Mabel Hallam, who lived on Springfield’s north side, claimed she’d been raped by a Black man. Subsequently, an African-American construction worker, George Richardson, was identified by Hallam, who told him he would have to prove he wasn’t her attacker. Richardson, in response, pleaded to those who held him, “Before God, I am innocent of this crime.”

But then a local newspaper - the Illinois State Journal - inflamed the populace the following day with its one-quarter page, banner headline,

Frenzied Mob Sweeps City, Wreaking Bloody Vengeance for Negro’s Heinous Crime

— Illinois State Journal, page 1, August 15, 1908

thus striking the match to light the riot fuse. However, some time after the two day mayhem, Hallam admitted her charge was a lie, a lie so often used against Black men, that had set in motion white terror on Springfield’s Black population.

But what of the lives and livelihoods wiped out in Springfield by the killings and arson? An archeological investigation, on land being readied for a construction project, revealed the scarred remains of several of the houses burned and destroyed by the mob. As archeologists sifted through the embers, they were able to reconstruct and expose some of what each home held and what those objects revealed about the lives of the families who lived there.

What of their household wealth, never accrued nor recovered by those and dozens of other stricken families, lost to successive generations? And today, in 2024, what is the real impact of racism on the life of an African American?

Listen to Springfield physician, Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese, standing atop the ashen remains of those homes destroyed in 1908, and consider those questions, as he recites his powerful poem, Face to Face. A dear friend, who is African American, called the doctor’s recitation “an incredible expression of what those of us who grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s (and beyond) have felt and experienced all of our lives!”

Springfield is working to improve its image, and the 1908 Springfield Race Riot National Monument site is evidence of that progress. Another example of Springfield’s change is a bold, colorful 1908 mural - painted by Barbara Mason - on the exterior brick wall of a building that stands not far from the path of the 1908 mob.