“Our history is not pretty”

A small group gathered the morning of Aug. 14 after heavy rains saturated an unpaved city-owned plot as part of a series of events commemorating the 1908 Springfield Race Riot.

Samples of soil were gathered to symbolize the lynching of two Black men during three days of turmoil in the city.

Held at 12th and Madison streets, Kathryn Harris, a retired library administrator who is also involved in historical interpretation, carefully crouched to dig up soil and place it in a jar with Scott Burton’s name etched on it.

On Aug. 15, 1908, Burton, a local barber and prominent member of the community, attempted to defend himself from the mob, but was ultimately beaten unconscious, his body mutilated and hung on a tree.

The dirt gathered marks the path rioters took to drag Burton’s body and represents the Black neighborhood the mob burned down.

Harris said it’s important these historical events are remembered so they are not repeated. “We are in such divisive times in our country that who knows what could happen,” Harris said. “We just have to stay vigilant.”

She said this event is especially relevant under President Donald Trump, who critics say is targeting the removal of historical markers that shed light on some of the country’s difficult past.

“The fish rots from the top, and our leadership is not 100% behind activities such as this,” Harris said. “We are seeing our stories erased in monuments and museums in D.C. because he wants everything to be pretty, but our history is not pretty.”

“Oftentimes we think about lynching, racial terror lynchings, as an act unto one person, but these were acts of terrorism,” said Christina Shutt, executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

“These were acts that were meant to destroy, to dissuade people from living in a community, to push people out of communities in some cases, to let Black people know they were not welcome in a community,” Shutt said.

Under the same tent stood a table with a pot of dirt collected from the site where William Donegan was lynched and a glass jar for attendees to fill with soil. The elderly Black resident was beaten, his throat slashed and hung from a tree. He was taken to the hospital and later died, according to a statement from the ALPLM.

Shutt said the gathering of the soil helps tell the full story of Springfield’s past.

“Springfield is both a place that gave birth to Abraham Lincoln as a president — he wasn’t born here, but him as a person — and it’s also a place that murdered its own residents,” she said.“So, it’s important to talk about those histories, to share those histories, to make people aware of the land, the soil, literally, that we stand upon.”

The jars will be displayed at the Abraham Lincoln’s Presidential Library and Museum as part of “The Second American Revolution” exhibit.

Later, the items will be included in a collection of similar samplings of lynching sites held by the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Candice D. Trees, the vice president of the Springfield branch of the NAACP, said the inclusion of the soil in the EJIL’s collection helps “keep what happened in Springfield alive.”