Austin Randolph, Jr., knows that some people may be surprised by the initiatives he is taking in his new role as president of the Springfield Branch of the NAACP. He took the top position last year when Teresa Haley stepped aside. He and other officers were formally installed Jan. 30 at a ceremony downtown.
One partnership he promotes is to collaborate with the SIU School of Medicine, Memorial Hospital and HSHS St. John’s Hospital on programming for seniors experiencing memory loss or dementia. Austin’s wife, Mary, and NAACP First Vice President Tina Montgomery are also involved in this outreach.
Randolph says that historically, some Black people never learned how to access the health care system, some don’t have enough access, and some are unwilling to share concerns with doctors about their mental health. He believes that connecting senior citizens centers to health and mental health services the Black population needs will benefit a lot of people.
Randolph has lived in Springfield about 40 years and retired in 2011 after a long career with the Illinois Department of Corrections, where his last position was deputy director of operations for the Northern Region. Born and raised in Chicago, he attended Southern Illinois University before transferring and graduating from Greenville College with a degree in organizational leadership. His first job was at the Menard Correctional Center in Chester. He was recognized as Correctional Officer of the Year and received multiple promotions, which allowed him to move to Springfield, where he got married, raised his children, and became active in Frontiers International, the NAACP and Zion Missionary Baptist Church.
Another big goal Randolph has is to address crime. “I’m a little biased about Black-on-Black crime because we have to do our part and I think we can do better,” he says. “That takes education. That takes knowledge. That takes participation.” By that he means not only cooperating with the police in solving crimes but also working with neighbors on block clubs to share information with each other and with their aldermen about what’s happening.
He knows some people fear being “labeled as a snitch,” but Randolph believes educating people about civic skills on how to participate effectively will improve safety and solve problems in neighborhoods.
Randolph is continuing the local NAACP’s strong relationship with the Springfield Police Department, which he believes the community doesn’t know enough about. NAACP leaders participate in interviews when police officers are being hired, and they are consulted about promotions and the selection of police chiefs. Randolph is especially supportive of neighborhood officers deployed to build relationships at the street level.
He understands some people are negative about the police, and that leads him to evoke a weather metaphor. “You have to fight through the storm,” he says, “to get to the sunlight, and most of the time it’s partly cloudy. The trick is, how do we achieve something? It’s give and take. It’s not always going to be sunny, and it’s not always going to be a storm. There’s going to be a middle of the road where some things are going to get done for the whole, for the majority.”
Randolph sees himself in that cloudy middle, collaborating to build a level playing field that he describes as “color blind, [with] opportunity for all, with the least amount of biases … and includes understanding, maturity, and last but not least, love.”
Randolph joined other local and national leaders in August 2024 in the White House when President Biden signed a proclamation establishing the 1908 Race Riot National Monument in Springfield. Besides that being a significant day for him personally, Randolph said it was critically important for Springfield.
“It says something about the city, the culture and the individuals of that day and time, and we should never forget that,” he explains. “If we don’t remember, if we don’t learn from it, we will repeat the same mistakes again. Our job is to make sure we learn from that major mistake and not to let it happen again. And to make sure that our children learn and understand why it happened and the way it happened, so that they will not participate in anything like that ever again.”
He is pleased that the HSHS Women and Children’s Clinic near the site of the race riot has an exhibit commemorating what happened in 1908. St. John’s Hospital cared for Black and white victims injured in the two-day riot.
By keeping the riot’s history “in the forefront of our minds,” Randolph said, “that will help us do better. That will help us grow. That will help us come together out of that tragedy.”
This article appears in Spring 2025 March 2025.
