President Joe Biden will sign a proclamation on August 16 establishing a national monument in Springfield, Illinois, the site of race riots in 1908 that later led to the founding of the NAACP.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during an Aug. 14 press conference that the ceremony would take place in the Oval Office on Aug. 16 and would be attended by civil rights activists and community leaders from Springfield, President Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.
The ceremony comes just 5 1/2 weeks after a white deputy sheriff shot and killed 36-year-old black woman Sonya Massey in her Springfield home after she called 911. Ms. Massey’s family members and supporters gathered for a press conference on August 14 to continue fighting for justice for Deputy Sean Grayson, who is charged with first-degree murder in her death.
“People are starting to pay attention because it’s an untold story,” Teresa Haley, former president of the Springfield NAACP, said of the riots. “It’s a deep, dark, dirty secret that Springfield is afraid of.”
“It’s tragic. It’s unfortunate that this is happening so soon after Sonya Massey, but let’s say her name – Sonya Massey – and if the president, the vice president and everybody else needs to recognize that and make this happen, then it’s high time,” continued Ms. Haley, the founder of Visions 1908, a civil rights, social and economic justice and education initiative.
Biden’s appointment does not call for a marker, although a centennial memorial stands in downtown’s Union Square Park. But Ms. Haley is pushing for a large, thoughtful, walkable memorial at the site of the foundations of five of the original homes that burned in the riots and were uncovered during railroad work in 2014. That project is awaiting funding.
In August 1908, mobs of white citizens marched through the capital of the state of Illinois under the pretext of convicting two black men – one in prison for sexually assaulting a white woman, the other for murdering a white man.
After authorities secretly moved the prisoners from the jail and took them to another prison miles away, the mob took out its anger on the city’s black population. Over the next few days, two innocent black men were hanged, dozens of homes and businesses in Springfield’s majority-black neighborhoods were burned, and families were forced to flee.
The National Guard was called in to restore order. White rioters were charged but later acquitted of their role in the lynching and destruction.
At least eight whites were killed and more than 100 injured in the violence, most of them attacked by members of the state’s militia or by each other, according to newspaper articles from the time. It is not known how many blacks were injured and killed.
Annoyed civil rights leaders met in New York and founded the NAACP on February 12, 1909, Lincoln’s 100th birthday. The first board of directors included scientist WE DuBois.
Sontae Massey, who was very close to his cousin Ms. Massey, said the family descended from William Donegan, an 84-year-old shoemaker married to a white woman who was lynched on the first night of the riot. Now the current generation must cope with the tragic loss of another family member.
“It’s ironic that we’re now at the base of what this family has stood for for hundreds of years. We’re going to continue to make changes across America. This is just the beginning,” Mr. Massey said. “It’s fitting. We’ve been the catalysts of change since 1908. We’re carrying on the tradition.”
The attack in Springfield occurred more than a decade before at least 25 documented attacks by whites on blacks in the summer of 1919, later called “Red Summer” because of the bloodshed.
Two years later, a white mob looted and burned the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, killing as many as 300 black residents. Mr. Biden traveled to Tulsa in 2021 to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre.
Ms Jean-Pierre called the Springfield riots a “horrific attack by a white mob on a black community” and said civil rights leaders had worked to publicize the events “to spur national action on civil rights.” She promised that the White House would provide more details before the official announcement on August 16.
In 2020, the site of the uprising near downtown Springfield was added to the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network, a collection of sites and programs that trace the history of the civil rights movement. Federal grants are available for the sites.
“While the 1908 Springfield race riots illustrate the long history of racial violence in our country, they also led to the founding of the NAACP – reflecting the strength and resilience of Black Americans in the tireless fight for civil rights,” said U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, whose office had urged Biden to name the memorial. “Today’s announcement is a critical step forward in honoring those killed in the 1908 attack and recognizing the impact of this tragedy.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press. Darlene Superville reported from Washington.
