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Study of Black history deepens for central Illinois students LENORE SOBOTA and KELSEY WATZNAUER, The Pantagraph March 7, 2021 FacebookTwitterEmail 5 1of5A variety of inspirational titles are available to students in Cameo Williams' third grade classroom at Grove Elementary School in Normal, Ill., Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. (David Proeber/The Pantagraph via AP)DAVID PROEBER/APShow MoreShow Less 2of5Grove Elementary School teacher Cameo Williams reads a book about Harriet Tubman to her third grade schools against the backdrop of a mural they created for Black History Month in Normal, ...

Gainesville’s first soil collection ceremony memorializes city’s lynching victims About 100 community members, Gainesville residents and local officials gathered to honor the 12 victims February 22, 2021 | 6:30am EST Alachua County Commissioner Marihelen Wheeler, 69, (right) and her granddaughter Tashayla Downer, 8, (left) fill a jar with soil to honor Andrew Ford at the Gainesville Soil Collection Ceremony on Feb. 20, 2021. Ford was lynched in Gainesville on Aug. 24, 1891, according to a pamphlet from the Alachua County Community Remembrance Project. ...

A few paces from where the statue of Old Joe once honored Civil War confederate soldiers, a different group of people were honored Saturday — 12 Gainesville men who were lynched after the war. The ceremony was part of Alachua County’s truth and reconciliation project to acknowledge the extra-judicial killings — often by mobs. “In 1865, after two-and-a-half centuries of brutal enslavement, Black Americans had great hope that emancipation would finally mean real freedom and opportunity,” said the Rev. Carl Smart, an assistant county manager. “Unfortunately it quickly became clear...