Biden to designate 1908 Springfield race riot site as national monument

President Joe Biden is set to sign a proclamation Aug. 16 to designate a national monument at the Springfield, Illinois, site of a 1908 race riot, which later fueled the formation of the NAACP.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a briefing with reporters on Aug. 14 that the ceremony will be held Aug. 16 in the Oval Office and will feature civil rights leaders and community leaders from Springfield, President Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.

The ceremony comes just 5 1/2 weeks after the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, by a white sheriff’s deputy in her Springfield home after she called 911 for help. Ms. Massey’s family members and supporters gathered Aug. 14 for a news conference in a continuing quest to see that justice is done in prosecuting the deputy, Sean Grayson, who is charged with first-degree murder in her death.

“People are starting to take notice because it is an untold story,” Teresa Haley, former president of the Springfield NAACP, said of the riot. “It’s a deep, dark, dirty secret that Springfield is scared of.”

“It’s tragic. It’s unfortunate that it comes on the heels of Sonya Massey, but let’s say her name – Sonya Massey – and if it takes the president, the vice president, and everyone else to recognize that and make this happen, it’s about time,” continued Ms. Haley, the  founder of Visions 1908, a civil rights, social and economic justice, and educational advocacy group.

The designation by Mr. Biden doesn’t create a marker, although a memorial for the centennial stands in downtown’s Union Square Park. But Ms. Haley has been pushing a large, reflective, walk-through memorial on the site of the foundations of five of the original homes burned in the riots that were unearthed during railroad work in 2014. That project awaits funding.

In August 1908, mobs of white residents tore through Illinois’ capital city under the pretext of meting out judgment against two Black men – one jailed on a sexual assault charge involving a white woman, and the other jailed in the separate murder of a white man.

After authorities secretly moved the prisoners from the jail and sent them to another lockup miles away, the mob took out their anger on the city’s Black population. Over the next few days, two innocent Black men were hanged, dozens of homes and businesses in Springfield’s majority-Black neighborhoods were burned to the ground, and families were forced to flee.

The National Guard was called in to restore order. White rioters were charged, but later acquitted for their roles in the lynching and destruction.

At least eight white people were killed in the violence and more than 100 were injured, mostly by members of the state’s militia or each other, according to news articles from that period. It’s not known how many Black people were injured and killed.

Fed-up civil rights leaders met in New York and chose the centennial of Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, 1909, to form the NAACP, whose original board included scholar W.E.B. DuBois.

Sontae Massey, who was very close to his cousin Ms. Massey, said the family is descended from William Donegan, an 84-year-old cobbler, married to a white woman, who was lynched the first night of the riot. Now, the current generation is dealing with the tragic loss of another family member.

“It’s ironic that we are now at the very foundation of what this family has stood for for hundreds of years. We will continue to make change across America. This is just the beginning,” Mr. Massey said. “It’s appropriate. We have been the catalysts of change since 1908. We’re continuing the tradition.”

The Springfield attack came more than a decade before at least 25 documented attacks by white people against Black people during the summer of 1919, later called “Red Summer” for the bloodshed.

Two years later, a white mob looted and burned Tulsa’s Greenwood district, killing as many as 300 Black residents. Mr. Biden traveled to Tulsa in 2021 to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre.

Ms. Jean-Pierre called the Springfield riot a “horrific attack by a white mob on a Black community” and said that civil rights leaders have worked to highlight what occurred “to spark national action on civil rights.” She promised that the White House would provide further details ahead of the official announcement on Aug. 16.

In 2020, the site of the riot near downtown Springfield was added to the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network, a collection of places and programs that outline the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Federal grants are available for the sites.

“While the 1908 Springfield race riot demonstrates our nation’s deep history of racial violence, it also sparked the creation of the NAACP – reflecting the strength and resilience of Black Americans in the tireless fight for civil rights,” said U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, whose office said she urged Biden to designate the monument. “Today’s announcement is a critical step forward to honor those who were killed in the 1908 attack and acknowledge the impact this tragedy had.”

This story was reported by The Associated Press. Darlene Superville reported from Washington.