At the turn of the century, Springfield had the highest percentage of black residents of any comparatively-sized city in Illinois. Springfield was a growing industrial center, and a lot of people were moving in. But jobs weren't being created fast enough, and the competition was fierce. In many cases, blacks were brought in as replacements for striking whites. Racial tension was fierce.
On Independence Day, 1908, a mining engineer named Clergy Ballard awoke in his bed to some strange noises in his home. He walked into his daughter's room to the sight of a man standing over her bed. The man fled, and Ballard gave chase. Ballard caught up to him, but the intruder had a razor, and cut his throat. Before he died, Ballard managed to identify his murderer as Joe James, a local black man with a history of minor crimes.
A crowd of whites found James sleeping on a bench, and beat him to within an inch of his life. The police stepped in, rescued James, and brought him to jail.
The next month, on August 14, the Illinois State Journal ran a story surrounding Mabel Hallam, a 21 year old wife of a well respected street car conductor. She claimed she was snatched up from her bed by George Richardson and raped. Richardson was a black caretaker who worked odd jobs around her neighborhood. The State Journal and other local papers did what they could to stoke fears about the black community as a whole.
On the very day the story ran, a mob gathered outside Sangamon County Jail on the corner of 7th and Jefferson. They demanded that Joe James and George Richardson be handed over to them.
Sheriff Charles Werner saw that the situation was quickly getting out of hand, and he feared for the safety of his prisoners. He organized a distraction -- a fire alarm -- to divert the mob's attention. He then snuck James and Richardson out the back, into a car, onto a train, and off to Bloomington.
Werner announced that the crowd may as well disperse, because the men they wanted to lynch were no longer in the city. The mob was pissed. They didn't disperse. Inspired by ringleaders like Kate Howard, a local room house owner who was notorious for hating blacks, the mob made their way to a restaurant owned by Harry Loper. They'd received word that it had been Loper's car that the prisoners fled in. What they found when they got there was Loper standing in his doorway with a rifle. But he soon left out the back, and the mob proceeded to drink his booze, trash his restaurant, and torch his car.
Authorities trying to quell the mob were overwhelmed, and the mayor was forced into hiding. Luckily for Springfield, the Governor happened to be in town, and he promptly called for the state militia. Meanwhile, the mob made its way towards a black commercial area called the Levee. They had moved past their initial goal of lynching a couple blacks, to expelling all blacks from the city.
The mob broke into a Jewish-owned pawn shop and stole guns and ammunition. They began chanting "Women desire protection and this seems the only way to get it!" After demolishing two or three city blocks in the Levee, they moved on towards a black residential area called the Badlands.
Along the way, they encountered a black barber named Scott Burton, who was already hated by Springfield for being married to a white woman. Upon seeing the mob making its way towards his barber shop, Barton decided to grab his shotgun to defend it. He stood in his doorway, and there was a brief standoff. Barton panicked, and fired buckshot straight into the crowd. The mob returned fire, killing him instantly. Barton's barber shop was burned, and his body was paraded through the streets. They eventually found a tree outside a saloon to hang him from, and riddled his body with bullets.
Once they reached the Badlands, they began burning houses, sparing those with a white handkerchief tied outside, indicating that a white family lived there. Firemen arrived, but the mob hindered their progress by blocking their way and cutting their hoses. An estimated 12,000 people showed up to watch the neighborhood burn. The mob was finally dispersed that night after the arrival of the state militia.
But the story, and the violence, isn't over yet. The next day, thousands of people were moving in and out of the city. Thousands of blacks fled. 5,000 National Guard troops arrived, along with tourists who read about what happened in the newspaper, who wanted to see the chaos for themselves.
Many blacks took shelter in the State Arsenal, and a new mob soon formed. When the National Guard blocked their path to the arsenal, the mob marched towards the home of William Donnegan. Various sources say Donnegan was either 76 or 84. He was elderly, and he never committed a crime in his life. He had been married to a white woman for 32 years. He was known to have been a friend of Abraham Lincoln, he mended his shoes. His throat was opened before being hung from a tree. He was still alive when Guard cut him down. He didn't live for much longer.
40 homes and 24 businesses lay in ruins. Seven people are dead, two blacks and five whites. Nearly 80 individuals, including four police officers, were brought to trial for participating in the riot. Only one man was convicted of a crime. He was convicted of stealing a saber from a guard. The murderers went free. Kate Howard, the ringleader, killed herself before facing charges.
The riot was sparked by a lie. Mabel Hallam, the woman who accused George Richardson of raping her, admitted shortly afterwards that she made everything up in order to cover for an affair she was having.
This is important. This riot sparked the first civil rights organization in the history of the country -- the NAACP. That's right. The racism in my town -- in Lincoln's town -- sparked the NAACP. One thing people seem to forget is that the Civil War was not a war fought for the rights of African Americans. The North fought the Civil War to keep the country united. That was their primary concern, and to most Northerners, freeing the slaves was simply a byproduct. There were still many Union soldiers who were absolutely disgusted by slavery, and they did fight to end it. But their numbers and influence have been greatly exaggerated. Most of the North was just as racist as the South, and we should never forget that. The Springfield race riots occurred not even a generation after the Civil War ended, and that racism was still around everywhere you looked.
Thank You so much for posting this I always know there is some curse in this city and found out today.
ReplyDeleteJerry