page_title: Springfield race riot of 1908
section_title: Social and political effects
hierarchical_section_title: Springfield race riot of 1908 / Aftermath / Racial atmosphere / Social and political effects
caption_attribution_description: English: Chicago Tribune. Feb 1909.
context_page_description: The Springfield race riot of 1908 were events of mass racial violence committed against African Americans by a mob of about 5,000 white Americans and European immigrants in Springfield, Illinois, between August 14 and 16, 1908. Two black men had been arrested as suspects in a rape, and attempted rape and murder. The alleged victims were two young white women and the father of one of them. When a mob seeking to lynch the men discovered the sheriff had transferred them out of the city, the whites furiously spread out to attack black neighborhoods, murdered black citizens on the streets, and destroyed black businesses and homes. The state militia was called out to quell the rioting.
  The riot, trials and aftermath are said to be one of the most well-documented examples of the complex intersection of race, class, and criminal justice in the United States. In 2008 an NPR report on the centenary of the race riot said that the fact of its taking place in a Northern state, specifically in "The Land of Lincoln", demonstrated that blacks were mistreated across the country, not just in the South, and described the event as a proxy for the story of race in America.
context_section_description: White men immediately galvanized around the notion of restricting blacks from voting. From 1890 to 1908 legislatures of southern states had passed new constitutions and laws that raised barriers to voter registration, effectively disenfranchising most blacks and excluding them from politics. This policy was enforced for decades, into the late 1960s.
  Local discussions were similarly overt in intent:
  The male citizen of the black belt in late years has come to pose as a political factor in Springfield.  Do you want niggers to make white mans' laws?  If not, get busy.  Have all the men who have made our laws for the past thirty years been elected by the intelligent white vote or by the majority of an ignorant, vicious Negro vote?
  — Springfield News, August 17, 1908
  Directed to arrest "all suspicious characters," police quickly began arresting blacks known to have lost their jobs, or homes in the riot, for "vagrancy"; in some cases police conducted raids of their homes to do so.  If unable to pay a $100 ($2,500 in 2018) fine, the blacks were given "hours" to leave town.  Most of those arrested lived, or had businesses in, the politically influential Levee District. For example, seven such arrests were made in one day, one week after the rioting.  The following week, police raided the homes of nine more blacks, arrested them for "vagrancy," and presented them with the same ultimatum to leave.
  Six months later, the city held a Centennial Celebration in honor of Lincoln's birthday. It was a "black tie" event held at the State Arsenal Building, featuring prominent American and foreign dignitaries. It was held at the same place used to shelter 300 black people during the riots. More than 700 whites attended the $25 ($650 in 2018) per plate event. No African American was invited, although many blacks wanted to celebrate Lincoln and his emancipation of slaves. Edward H. Morris, a prominent Chicago black lawyer, did purchase a ticket to the event. When organizers learned that he was black, his ticket was rescinded.
  It was reported that blacks were thoroughly "over the fact that they [are] deprived in the big doings" around Springfield, and stipulated that, from this point out, the social order of the city had changed:
  The colored population hereabouts will be represented only by the gents who slip the soup [to the white guests].
caption: Chicago Tribune. Feb 1909.
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