Illinois Senators call for monument of a 1908 riot that launched the NAACP
Randi Richardson
January 15, 2021, 9:56 AM
Illinois two senators have called on President-elect Joe Biden to make the site of a 1908 race riot in Springfield a national monument.
Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, both Democrats, wrote to Biden Thursday asking for the designation, citing the riot’s historic significance, especially its role in inspiring the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Illinois National Guard soldiers on duty among burned out residences. (Sangamon Valley Collection / Lincoln Library)
In 1908, from Aug. 14 to 16, a mob of about 5,000 white people stormed Black neighborhoods to find and lynch two Black men, one charged with murdering a white man and the other with raping a white woman. When the mob learned the men had been secretly transferred to a jail in another city, it began canvassing Black neighborhoods to destroy businesses and h