On Oct. 9, a great celebration was held at HSHS St. John’s Children’s Hospital in Springfield for the 1908 race riot site’s federal designation as a national monument, which establishes it as a unit of the National Park Service.
In 2014, a search for buried historical items in a portion of land purchased for the Springfield Rail Improvements Project uncovered the remains of the brick foundations of five homes destroyed by fire during the race riot. The discovery at this site disrupted the landscape and became the driver for bringing a race riot memorial to Springfield. If it had not been for the rail project uncovering the remnants of a horrible event from our city’s past, we likely would not be delivering its story through a national monument today – nor celebrating the stories of greatness from that time, such as the Black firefighters who battled homes set ablaze during the riot, the formation of the NAACP and one of the NAACP’s co-founders, Ida B. Wells-Barnett. No unit of the NPS has presented these stories before.
Over the past few decades, there have been efforts to recognize this part of our history. And for more than the past two years, a coalition of local and national organizations grew over time and worked, via consensus, toward the designation and future landscape for the memorial. We want to call attention to the multifaceted, diverse team that strived to push for the site’s federal designation and progress the endeavor through advocacy, community outreach, property matters and philanthropy.
The organizations in this coalition, and key representatives, include: American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois – Springfield Chapter, Ken Page; city of Springfield, Nathan Bottom; Fever River Research, Floyd Mansberger; Hanson Professional Services Inc., Kevin Seals; Hospital Sisters Health System, Damond Boatwright, Matthew Fry and Camille Rodriguez; Lincoln Presidential Foundation, Erin Carlson Mast; NAACP – Springfield branch, president Austin Randolph Jr. and former president Teresa Haley; National Religious Partnership for the Environment, Cassandra Carmichael; Sakura Conservation Strategies, Dan Sakura; Sierra Club, Athan Manuel and Jackie Feinberg.
This effort extends beyond political affiliations. It has always been bipartisan, as seen in examples such as the city land donation process occurring across mayoral administrations, from former Mayor Jim Langfelder, a Democrat, to current Mayor Misty Buscher, a Republican, and in community advocacy from Illinois Sen. Doris Turner. The congressional delegation has been supportive from the start, across terms and parties. Republicans U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood and former U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis were early advocates – Rep. Davis proposed a bill to place the monument under the NPS. Democrats U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski and U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have been staunch supporters.
We commend the support from a range of organizations, including Black Lives Matter Springfield, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, the National Park Foundation, Prince Hall Masons of Central Lodge #3, the Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum and the Springfield-Decatur Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. In addition, we acknowledge the late Leroy Jordan, who held several volunteer leadership roles related to advocacy around the rail project and the race riot site’s designation before he died in 2020.
Just as Springfield’s rail project has become a model for the nation, the monument and future memorial will serve as an example for this country, illustrating the collaboration between local and national groups. Leaders in Springfield connected with the federal government on the race riot site project. In 2020, Sergio “Satch” Pecori, Hanson’s chairman and CEO, testified before the House Subcommittee on Highways and Transit on the importance of timely and efficient federal assistance and coordination on infrastructure projects and preserving historic resources, such as those uncovered at the race riot site. In 2022, Teresa Haley, former president of the Springfield Branch of the NAACP, hosted a public meeting convened by the NPS as part of the agency’s special resource study on the site. In June of this year, the Rev. T. Ray McJunkins graciously hosted hundreds of citizens at Union Baptist Church for a meeting convened by the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Council on Environmental Quality to hear the public’s support for the designation. National leadership included Ben Jealous, Sierra Club’s executive director and past NAACP CEO, as well as NAACP’s current CEO, Derrick Johnson. And, in addition to the NRPE and Union Baptist Church, local and national faith communities were engaged in the process, including the Faith Coalition for the Common Good, the Jewish Federation of Springfield and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.
We have reached significant milestones this year, but we must be committed to staying involved – it has taken a lot of people to get this far, and it will take a lot of people to see this project to completion. This is an advocacy effort calling everyone to continue to urge making this monument a national treasure with the creation of a memorial to commemorate this tragic event in American history.
Austin Randolph is president of the Springfield Branch of the NAACP and Ken Page is president of ACLU of Illinois – Springfield Chapter.
This article appears in This I believe Illinois.
This monument not bipartisan. Mayor Buscher is a fake republican who panders to democrats at every available opportunity. If there are any real republicans who support this, it’s only to avoid the ire of the woke mob.
The people who support this monument are all woke democrats, and they are using it as an excuse to promote their hatred for white people.
@Burger Addict
Funny how a monument marking a painful part of history feels, to you, like a personal insult. It’s almost as if everything—no matter the meaning or impact for others—needs to revolve around your own discomfort to be valid.
But not everything out there is meant to cater to one person’s sense of grievance, especially not something that’s about recognizing resilience and honoring history.
Ever thought about how freeing it might be to see something for what it actually represents to others, rather than just how it makes you feel?
Please learn the facts before just commenting what you think happened or what you ASSume happened.
The White officers that hid Joe James and George Richardson were never spoken of unfavorably.
William Donnegan’s White wife was never spoken of unfavorably.
No one ever spoke ill of Harry Loper, the White store owner who helped one of the accused get to Sherman to catch the train out of Springfield.
No one has spoken ill of Louis Johnston, a White man, the first casualty who died because he was simply at Loper’s when the mob destroyed his business.
The only hatred spoken of in the race riot story is that of the murderous crowds killing whoever and destroying whatever was in their way and Mabel Hallum, the White store”Karen” of her time for lying and causing the riot in the first place, so please keep your cowardly comments to yourself.