Editor's note 08-05-21

Our writer's lead paragraph in the article on this page sent me fact-checking. Springfield's racial income disparity is the worst in the nation? That's what Governing magazine concluded in its 2019 series that analyzed 2017 census data, and apparently nobody has challenged the accuracy of the analysis since. This newspaper published an article from that series, "Segregated in the Heartland," on Feb. 7, 2019. "Springfield may have launched the political careers of Lincoln and Barack Obama, but it is among the worst third of American cities in terms of black-white segregation, according to our analysis of federal data," wrote the authors, Daniel Vock, J. Brian Charles and Mike Maciag. "The truth is that segregation isn't limited to the South, or to large cities. America's racial divide, in fact, runs right through the Heartland." I'm thinking now the only way to challenge those facts is to change the reality. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and CEO