When you hear mention of Springfield, Illinois, is the Springfield Massacre the first thing to come to mind? Unlikely. If you are like most people, it’s Abraham Lincoln. What probably doesn’t come to mind is the racial massacre that took place there in 1908.
The facts of the Springfield Massacre are these. Two African Americans sat in jail after being accused of unrelated crimes. An angry white mob gathered, intent on lynching the two before a trial could take place. The police responded by putting the men on a train to another town nearby. Unsatisfied, the white mob went on a violent spree. It killed two other African Americans by lynching them. One victim was 84 years old, his “crime” being married to a white woman. Besides the lynchings, six other African Americans were shot dead. The mob destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of property and forced nearly 2,000 black residents of Springfield to leave town.
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I’ve Never Heard of the Springfield Massacre
The Springfield Massacre is one of hundreds (let me type that again, hundreds) of similar events from the early 20th century in the US. The events happened in small- and medium-sized towns across the country. That’s right, not just in the South, although such events were more frequent there. (My next post will describe another, similar, event from the same time in Arkansas history.) The Springfield Massacre was just one event in a growing trend toward racial cleansing in the US at that time. Here’s how author James Loewen describes things in his book, Sundown Towns: Hidden Dimension of American Racism:
The Springfield riot stands as a prototype for the many smaller riots that left communities all-white between 1890 and 1940, most of which have never been written about by any historian. Indeed, the Springfield riot itself spawned a host of imitators: whites shouted “Give ‘em Springfield!” during attacks on African Americans. . . . The Illinois State Register reported, ‘At Auburn, Thayer, Virden, Girard, Pawnee, Spaulding, Buffalo, Riverton, Pana, Edinburg, Taylorville, Pleasant Plains and a score of other places in central Illinois a Negro is an unwelcome visitor and is soon informed he must not remain in the town.’ Buffalo, a little town twelve miles east of Springfield, became all-white on August 17, 1908, two days after the National Guard ended the Springfield riot. Not to be outdone by Springfield, whites in Buffalo posted the following ultimatum at the train station: ‘All N – – – – – – are warned out of town by Monday, 12n, sharp. Buffalo Sharp Shooters.’
Lessons of Springfield
One lesson, of course, is that mention of this story isn’t common. Most of these small-town massacres lie covered up and rarely come into the light. Another is the reminder that attacks on African Americans are not solely a southern phenomenon. I’ll also add that the murderers in Springfield faced little risk of seeing justice for their violent actions.
As a professional historian, I don’t look down on people who tell me they’ve never heard of Springfield. Or any of the other similar race massacres of American history. But I do get upset when people shrug them off as unimportant or isolated events without general relevance. As the next post will reinforce, these events are not nearly as isolated as people believe. They only seem that way because they lie buried in our national memory.
Horrible as it was, I can report a small silver lining to the story of the Springfield Massacre. It was one of the events that influenced the Niagara Movement. The Niagara Movement, in turn, led to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1909. Small consolation for the victims at Springfield, perhaps, but at least it was something.
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