By Stephanie Gadlin
(Source: The Crusader Newspaper Group)
Honors Tragic History that Sparked the Birth of the NAACP
A hundred and sixteen years ago, the Illinois capitol was the center of one of the deadliest race riots in history. Its culmination that left several dead and Springfield in shambles, sparked the birth of the NAACP, and led to massive Black advocacy efforts to stay the hand of White supremacy.
On August 16th, President Joesph R. Biden, flanked by IL Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, signed a proclamation establishing the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument. Surrounded by leaders from some of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious civil rights groups, the President reaffirmed his commitment to heal the nation’s racial past and preserve and protect places that tell the true and full story of America’s history.
“Our history is not just about the past, it’s about our present and our future,” President Biden said at the signing in Washington, D.C., done under the auspices of the Antiquities Act. “The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument will help us remember an unspeakable attack on the Black community and honor the Americans who came together in its aftermath to help deliver on the promise of civil rights.”
President Theodore Roosevelt first used the Antiquities Act in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Since then, 18 presidents of both parties have used this authority to protect natural and historic features in America, including the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the Pullman National Monument, and the César E. Chávez National Monument.
“I think this new monument highlights, for so many the importance of understanding our history,” Steve Benjamin, senior advisor to the President, to the Crusader in an exclusive interview. “I think we, at times may not really understand the full context of who we are and where we’ve come from, and how we may not be where we want to be as a country, but how far we’ve come. We might not be what we want to be, but we’re not where we used to be.
“And that’s something obviously our President speaks about regularly,” he continued. “We’re continuously working on the project, perfecting this union and helping people understand, maybe some connectivity between things they understand and don’t understand.”
Benjamin made history in 2010 when he became the first Black mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, the former seat of Jim Crow. He has served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2018-2019), as president of the African American Mayors Association, vice chairman of the Global Parliament of Mayors, executive chairman of Municipal Bonds for America, chairman of the FirstNet Authority, a member of the Federal Communications Commission’s Intergovernmental Advisory Committee, and as a member of several corporate and nonprofit boards.
A member of Kappa Alpha Psi and Sigma Pi Phi fraternities, Benjamin is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina School of Law, where he served as president of Student Government and as president of the Student Bar Association.
When asked to reflect on this moment and his own accomplishments, he placed his role in the White House in context. “I’m most proud (that) I sit in rooms that my ancestors couldn’t have dreamed of,” Benjamin said. “And I know that they kicked down the doors and served those rooms. So, I enter every day with a spirit of gratitude, but also a sense of obligation knowing that there’s a lot of work to be done for all of our children and making sure that they inherit a world better than one that we did.”
The White House contacted this reporter after reading a story commemorating the ghastly Chicago Race Riot of 1919 but also highlighted other racial conflicts in Illinois. Benjamin said the President chose to recognize Springfield’s incident due to a bipartisan lobbying effort from state officials and both U.S. senators. “I want to commend (the Crusader) for that in-depth story which I also read,” he said. “It was excellent reporting and timely…”
The Springfield project and monument design will be managed by the U.S. Department of Interior and National Park Service with significant impact from Illinois officials, Benjamin said. The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument will protect 1.57 acres of land and will be the second national monument President Biden has designated using his authority under the Antiquities Act that commemorates and preserves a place significant to civil rights history.
At the conclusion of the Reconstruction Era, newly freed Blacks began the trek North to look for opportunity, stability, explore a new way of life post-bondage, as well as escape racial hostility and violence. The relocation effort launched the first wave of The Great Black Migration in 1910, with over five million individuals and families settling in California, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Illinois, the land of President Abraham Lincoln, who had released their parents and grandparents from the yoke of slavery.
According to federal records, between 1882 and 1910, there were 2,503 recorded lynchings of Black people in the United States. Included among those were the New York City Race Riot in 1900 where violence broke out on August 13 after a white plain-clothes patrolman was killed by a Black man during a street scuffle.
In that same year, another incident led to what became known as the Robert Charles Riot, which went from July 24 to 27 of that year. The riots began after Robert Charles, a Black civil rights activist, fatally shot a white police officer during an altercation and who fled arrest. As news of the incident spread throughout the city and a search for vocal advocate for armed self-defense was underway, a white mob started rioting and began randomly attacking African Americans throughout the city.
The racially driven mob action resulted in the deaths of 28 people and injuries to more than 50 people—most of whom were African American. The terrorism ended after Charles was located and killed by a vigilante, and the mob continued to attack his body post-mortem.
Another major race riot occurred in Atlanta in 1906 and lasted for two days. Tensions escalated in the city due to economic competition and outrageous media reports alleging assaults on white women by Black men. Starting on September 22 of that year, white mobs attacked African American neighborhoods, resulting in the murder of 25 Blacks and two whites. More than 100 people were injured, 90 percent of which were Black.
In August 1908, two Black men – 17-year-old Joe James and 36-year-old George Richardson – were being held in the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield based on the claims of white accusers, including one who later recanted,” the White House shared.
“On Friday, August 14th, a crowd of young, white men gathered around the county jail demanding that the two men be released to be lynched. Fearing violence and hoping to diffuse the situation, the county sheriff and a local white business owner worked together to have James and Richardson moved to a jail in Bloomington about 60 miles away.
“Upon learning of the move, the mob became violent and began looting and burning Black owned homes and businesses and attacking residents and business owners. Violence continued throughout the weekend despite the efforts of the Governor, state militia, and Black firefighters and community members to defend the local neighborhoods.
“The riot was quelled by the morning of Sunday, August 16th, but not before two Black men, Scott Burton, and William Donnegan, were brutally lynched. By the end of the weekend, almost three dozen businesses in the Levee neighborhood – half of them Black-owned and most of the rest Jewish-owned businesses – had been targeted, looted, and vandalized. In the Badlands neighborhood, dozens more homes of Black community members and Black owned businesses were also destroyed,” federal officials said.
Six months after the Springfield riot and on the centennial of President Lincoln’s birth leaders from around the country, including Chicago newspaper publisher and activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett, sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, and teacher/activist Mary Church Terrell issued a national call for a national organization that could counter racist policies and fight for equality across the United States.
Soon after, a multiracial group of civil rights and philanthropic leaders gathered in New York and founded an organization that would become the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Its first president was a white Harvard-trained, constitutional lawyer and anti-imperialism activist Moorfield Storey.
White House officials said, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument will also display the power of individual Americans who came together across racial lines and acted in the face of injustice. “The designation furthers the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to advancing civil rights and racial justice, including through President Biden signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act to codify lynching as a federal hate crime, establishing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, and dedicating Juneteenth as a federal holiday,” they told the Crusader.
“This action builds on President Biden’s leadership in also establishing or expanding the Blackwell School National Historic Site, the Amache National Historic Site, and the Brown v. Board National Historic Park – all units of the National Park System,” Benjamin noted.
The new national monument is part of the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network, which highlights sites of historic importance to the Civil Rights Movement. It also joins an extensive network of park sites dedicated to commemorating historic places integral to civil rights and equality, such as the Manzanar National Historic Site in California, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Park in Alabama, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, and the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington, D.C.
On August 19th, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson announced his organization would hold its next national convention in Chicago in 2026. Its first convention in 1926 was also held in the city 100 years ago. Issues such as racial injustice, economic and class issues continue to shadow African Americans, despite advocacy and state or federal interventions.
“I can say that under this President, he’s aggressively worked at building the economy for the bottom up, middle out and are very much so, to pull people together,” Benjamin said.