SPRINGFIELD - This week, Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) marked the designation of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument alongside Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Tammy Duckworth, local leaders from the NAACP and ACLU, and officials from the Department of the Interior and White House Council on Environmental Quality at a ceremony in Springfield.
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“The 1908 Springfield Race Riot is deeply significant for our community and our country, both as a horrific example of racial violence and as a pivotal moment in civil rights history,” said Congresswoman Budzinski. “Telling the story of our past is essential to build a future with true justice and equality, but for too long this tragedy has not received the acknowledgment it deserves. This new national monument is an important step forward to honor those killed in 1908, reckon with America’s history of racial violence and recognize the resilience of the Black community. I was proud to work with Senator Duckworth, Senator Durbin, local leaders and members of our community to get this long-overdue designation across the finish line and preserve this site for generations to come.”
On Aug. 16, 2024, President Joe Biden signed a proclamation designating the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument. The new national monument tells the story of a horrific attack by a white mob on a Black community that was representative of the racism, intimidation and violence that Black Americans experienced across the country. National outrage at the attack – which occurred just blocks away from President Abraham Lincoln’s home – spurred a national focus on civil rights, including the creation of the organization now known as the NAACP.
Congresswoman Budzinski advocated to make the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot a national monument since the beginning of her term in Congress, including as the lead of the bipartisan 1908 Race Riot National Monument Act with Congressman Darin LaHood. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth led companion legislation in the U.S. Senate. In December of 2023, Budzinski sent a letter on behalf of the Illinois Congressional Delegation to President Biden asking him to use his authority under the Antiquities Act to designate the site as a national monument.
The 1908 Springfield Race Riot:
In August 1908, two Black men – 17-year-old Joe James and 36-year-old George Richardson – were being held in the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield based on the claims of white accusers, including one who later recanted. On Friday, August 14th, a crowd of largely young, white men gathered around the county jail demanding that the two men be released in order to be lynched. Fearing violence and hoping to defuse the situation, the county sheriff and a local white business owner worked together to have James and Richardson moved to a jail in Bloomington about 60 miles away.
Upon learning of the move, the mob became violent and began looting and burning Black-owned homes and businesses and attacking residents and business owners. Violence continued throughout the weekend despite the efforts of the Governor, state militia, and Black firefighters and community members to defend the local neighborhoods.
The riot was largely quelled by the morning of Sunday, August 16th, but not before two Black men, Scott Burton and William Donnegan, were brutally lynched. By the end of the weekend, almost three dozen businesses in the Levee neighborhood – half of them Black-owned and a majority of the rest Jewish-owned businesses – had been targeted, looted, and vandalized. In the Badlands neighborhood, dozens more homes of Black community members and Black-owned businesses were also destroyed.
Six months after these tragic days, on the centennial of President Lincoln’s birth and invoking what had happened blocks from the only home he ever owned, a diverse set of leaders from around the country, including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Mary Church Terrell, called to create a national organization that could counter racist policies and fight for equality across the United States. Soon after, civil rights leaders gathered in person and founded an organization that would become the NAACP. Since then, the NAACP has become a transformative and effective civil rights organization, playing key roles in successful lawsuits to challenge discrimination and segregation, including Brown v. Board of Education, and advocating to end racial injustice across America.
The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument:
During an excavation as part of the Springfield Rail Improvements project, foundations and artifacts from homes destroyed during the riot were uncovered. An agreement with community members was reached in 2018 to excavate the remains and designate the uncovered site a memorial.
The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument protects 1.57 acres of federal land in Springfield, Illinois, and will be managed by the Department of the Interior’s National Park Service. Through the historical objects protected at this site, the monument will tell the story of the violent mob that attacked the Black community in Springfield and lynched two Black men. The Springfield 1908 Race Riot was both a tragic event, and it was emblematic of a larger series of lynchings and racist mob violence that targeted Black communities across the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Between 1882 and 1910, there were 2,503 recorded lynchings of Black people in the United States.
The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument will be the second national monument President Biden has designated using his authority under the Antiquities Act that commemorates and preserves a place significant to civil rights history. This action builds on President Biden’s leadership in also establishing or expanding the Blackwell School National Historic Site, the Amache National Historic Site, and the Brown v. Board National Historic Park – all units of the National Park System.
The Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument weaves together two important threads in our nation's story: the hateful violence targeted against Black Americans, and the power of dedicated individuals to come together across racial lines to transform shock and grief into hope and action. Over the coming years, the National Park Service will work with the local community and organizations to plan for interpretation, commemoration, and visitor experiences associated with the new park site, which includes the charred foundations of five former homes that were never rebuilt. Just blocks from the Lincoln Home National Historical Site, the new national monument will help tell a fuller and more complete history about the tragedy that occurred in Springfield and the work of civil rights leaders to organize and create lasting change.
The new national monument is part of the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network, which highlights sites of historic importance to the Civil Rights Movement. It also joins an extensive network of park sites dedicated to commemorating historic places integral to civil rights and equality, such as the Manzanar National Historic Site in California, the Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Park in Alabama, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, and the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument in Washington, D.C.
Background on Antiquities Act Designations:
President Theodore Roosevelt first used the Antiquities Act in 1906 to designate Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. Since then, 18 presidents of both parties have used this authority to protect natural and historic features in America, including the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty, the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument, the Pullman National Monument, and the César E. Chávez National Monument.
The 1908 Springfield Race Riot National Monument will be President Biden’s eleventh use of the Antiquities Act and his second new national monument commemorating a site of significance to the Civil Rights Movement, following the creation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Mississippi and Illinois last year.
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