Washington DC, US
Reuters
President Joe Biden on Friday designated a national monument to commemorate a 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, that left several people dead, hundreds injured and destroyed dozens of Black-owned businesses and homes.
In August, 1908, mobs of white residents tore through Illinois’ capital city under the pretext of meting out judgment against two jailed Black men. After authorities secretly moved the prisoners to another lockup miles away, the mob took out its anger on the city’s Black population.
US President Joe Biden signs a proclamation to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument at the White House in Washington, US, on 16th August, 2024. PICTURE: Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz.
The riot fuelled the formation of the influential civil rights organisation, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in 1909.
A ceremony held on Friday in the Oval Office featured civil rights leaders and community leaders from Springfield, which is also former President Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.
“We’ve made a lot of progress but we can’t never stop,” Biden said during the event, adding that it was important for people to remember what had happened.
The move came amid efforts, Biden said, to “erase” the country’s history, which serves as a warning to Americans about the risks “if we don’t fight for this democracy.” Books dealing with race issues have been a target for book bans sought by conservative advocacy groups.
“The new national monument will tell 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,” the White House said in a statement.
Troops stand guard after an August, 1908, race riot in Springfield, Illinois, that left several people dead, hundreds injured and destroyed dozens of Black-owned businesses and homes. PICTURE: Courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum/Handout via Reuters
The event comes a few weeks after the fatal July shooting 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.
Massey’s death has reignited the debate over police brutality against Black Americans four years after the murder of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis, which led to protests over racial inequality.
In June, 2021, Biden became the first sitting US president to visit a site in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where hundreds of Black Americans were massacred by a white mob in 1921, and said the legacy of racist violence and white supremacy still resonates.
The same month, he and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for the 5tH November election, signed a bill into law to make 19th June a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans.
– Additional reporting by STEPHANIE KELLY
