The National Park Service (NPS) is conducting a “special resource study” to determine if the 1908 Springfield Race Riot site meets the criteria to be included in the national park system. Public comments are being accepted online now through Sept. 3 (see link below).
The NPS hosted a meeting Aug. 10 to explain the process and invite public comment. Approximately 100 people filled the meeting room at the NAACP office on South 11th Street. Those present included elected officials and the great-grandson of Ida B. Wells. There were representatives of the NAACP, Hospital Sisters Health System, Springfield Urban League, ACLU, Black Lives Matter Springfield, Springfield African American History Museum, Route History, Jewish Federation of Springfield and the Sierra Club. These groups, and individual citizens, expressed their united support for national recognition of the site and inclusion in the national park system.
The Springfield Rail Improvements Project led to the discovery of the remains of five homes that were burned during the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. An archaeological excavation of the site has been underway near Madison and 10th Streets since 2014 by Fever River Research. The Illinois State Museum is the repository for the artifacts. The special resource study, which is being conducted at the direction of Congress, will evaluate the archaeological site as well as other locations and buildings around Springfield that played an important role in the riot and its aftermath. The 1908 Race Riot led to the formation of the NAACP.
There are 423 units in the national park system, and only 63 are national parks. There are numerous other designations. For a site to be recommended for inclusion in the national park system, it must contain nationally significant natural and/or cultural resources and represent a resource that is not already adequately represented in the national park system, or comparably represented and protected by another entity. It must be feasible for the NPS to manage over the long term. And, the NPS must be the best entity to manage the site, compared to other agencies or organizations. The study will determine if the race riot site meets these criteria.
Julie Bell, cultural resource manager for the NPS based in Denver, explained some of the questions to be answered. Is the story to be told important to U.S. history? Is the story being told somewhere else? Can people get access to the site? How easy or hard will it be to staff? What is the cost to the NPS for acquisition and staffing? Are there any threats to resources to be managed? Are there partnership opportunities?
The study got underway in March 2022. A final report will be submitted by the National Park Service to the Secretary of the Interior in Spring 2023. The NPS doesn’t take an official position during the study; however, the final report will include a specific recommendation related to inclusion in the national park system. Tokey Boswell, NPS associate regional director, said that 60-70% of the special resource studies result in “positive findings.” Of those, about 75% become a national park system site. The NPS cannot independently add a site. That takes an Act of Congress, signed by the president. Or, the president has the authority under the Antiquities Act to declare a site a National Monument within the national park system, which does not require approval by Congress.
The public comment portal on the NPS website invites people to answer questions about their vision for preserving the race riot site and how it should be managed; what types of activities and experiences are desired; what features, values and stories are most important; and, whether they support designation as a unit of the national park system. There is also an opportunity to provide other ideas or comments. For updates about the study and to comment, go to https://parkplanning.nps.gov/springfieldsrs. For more information, contact Tokey Boswell at tokey_boswell@nps.gov.
There is widespread bipartisan and community support for telling the poignant stories of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. Hanson is leading the massive Springfield Rail Improvements Project. The company engaged one of its consultants, RDG Planning & Design, headquartered in Des Moines, to develop a conceptual design for a 1908 Race Riot memorial. They also created a stakeholder group with local members, including the NAACP, to provide input to the design. A bronze sculpture of a tree symbolizing a lynching tree is one of the powerful features of the proposed memorial. A video illustrating the proposed design is on the NAACP website http://springfieldnaacp.org/.
Karen Ackerman Witter moved to Springfield when she was nine and didn’t learn about the 1908 Race Riot until many years later as an adult. She is a former associate director of the Illinois State Museum, which is located on the site where William Donnegan was lynched during the race riot. A marker outside the museum tells this gruesome story.
This article appears in Green growth.
