Culture

In 1979 John Hallwas was a young professor, doing research about what early Illinois settlers would have read. While scouring through newspapers from the 1830s, he found poems in the Sangamo Journal that caught his attention, each simply signed “H.” Hallwas wondered who the poet was and kept searching, finding a total of 71 poems […]

After a year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Sangamon County Historical Society will once again host the Oak Ridge Cemetery Walk on Sunday, Oct. 3. Eight Springfield notables will be portrayed. Each of the actors will make a 5-7-minute presentation telling the story of one buried nearby. Here are a few highlights of each: […]

I am not a scientist nor a lab technician, yet here I was on a Sunday afternoon filling test tubes in the laboratory at the Nipper Wildlife Sanctuary nature center. My interest in the natural environment is deep, but rather than delving into the technicalities of environmental science, I have typically sought the 19th century-type […]

Walk from the Dana-Thomas House at the corner of Fourth and Lawrence in Springfield, down to the Governor’s Mansion and around to Fifth Street. In just that short stretch, you can see four buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The education committee of the Dana-Thomas House Foundation (DTHF) has published a free […]

More than 140 years since its founding, the Illinois State Museum in Springfield is featuring its first exhibit by Black curators. In collaboration with Springfield’s Juneteenth, Inc., the museum is hosting an exhibit titled “NOIR,” the French word for the color black. Korbin “Kas” King, 32, is one of the curators. He said the art […]

News of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, signed in 1863, did not reach Galveston, Texas, for two years, five months and 15 days. News arrived via horseback and contained the following: The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an […]

For centuries now, the entity known as the “Black church” has been a pillar of Black society. Many traditions such as singing styles and joyous reverberations like call-and-response have deep roots in Western Africa. Even the way in which some Black Christian churchgoers – particularly those who were raised in Baptist or Pentecostal traditions – […]