page_title: Springfield race riot of 1908
section_title: Immigrants and race
hierarchical_section_title: Springfield race riot of 1908 / Background / Immigrants and race
caption_attribution_description: English: Springfield Black &amp; Immigrant Population. 1850-1910.
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: As Reconstruction came to an end, between 1870 and 1890, the United States was undergoing a massive population increase.  Between 1890 and 1908, rapid industrialization and urbanization brought millions of European immigrants to the country.
  Arrivals usually came to Ellis Island, then trekked to cities where relatives had already been establishing themselves, expanding ethnic communities throughout the country. Springfield, a rapidly growing industrial center, was one of those cities.
  At the turn of the century, Springfield's population was about 35,000 people and growing.  In 1900, the immigrant population, which prior to 1890 had only grown at a rate of 0.15 percent per year and remained stagnant at roughly 4,500, began to grow at a rate of 4 percent per year – a 300,000 percent increase.
  According to the United States Census Bureau, in 1908, nearly 35 percent of these immigrants were unable to speak English, and nearly 15 percent were illiterate.  This created tension between white immigrants and white Americans, who feared their growing political presence.  White Americans were increasingly more negative, fearful, and xenophobic toward the immigrants, who they deemed to be biologically inferior, culturally and religiously odd, and generally substandard with a proclivity to filth, laziness and violence.  Within the country's racial hierarchy, European immigrants were perched below whites, but above blacks, fending off degrading ethnic slurs such as "Hunky" (Hungarians), "Guinea" (Italians), and "Polack" (Polish):
  Alien in thought, grotesque in manner of life, the thrifty and laborious Pole is a conspicuous figure...Slow to learn even simple English, unable to express in our tongue any abstract ideas, one can only conjecture his inner life and mental attitude. His part in the drama of conflicting races has thus a silent, pantomimic effect.
  — New England Magazine, 1904
  Such attitudes presented new immigrants with a choice — fight to become socially "white" or align with politically and economically disadvantaged blacks. In an atmosphere where immigrants heard statements like "One white man is as good as two or three Italians", and where whites were bringing lawsuits against their own family members who they suspected of having "tainted" black blood, immigrants opted to strive to become "white":
  In a country where the distinction between white man and black is intended as a distinction of value as well as ethnography it is no compliment to the Italian to deny him his whiteness...
  — Robert F. Foerster, Economist, 1919
  America is not a melting pot. It is a sizzling cauldron for the ethnic American who feels that he has been politically courted and legally extorted by both government and private enterprise...The ethnic American also feels unappreciated for the contribution he makes to society.  He resents the way the working class is looked down upon...Unfortunately, because of old prejudices and new fears, anger is generated against other minority groups rather than those who have power.
  — Barbara Mikulski, Former Senator, 1970
  As white races proliferated alongside the science and ideology that imparted legitimacy to their existence, color and race became detached in the case of whiteness.  Instead 'white' came to be populated by a hierarchy of peoples, at the top of which was America's charter white race, the Anglo-Saxons, and a number of rank-ordered lesser white races...We sometimes lose sight [of] the lengths of which white Americans, especially of the working and lower classes, went to patrol the boundaries of 'white,' however, it was always understood.
  — David A. Gerber, Historian 1999
  The pressure to become "white" led to many immigrants seeking ways to "prove" their whiteness.  Protecting and expanding the notion of white supremacy was deemed convincing evidence.
  At the time, blacks were expected to be subservient, agreeable and deferential to whites or be subject to verbal abuse, threats or physical violence.  Whites who viewed blacks as being "uppity" would often impose quick and harsh retribution against them. A
caption: Springfield Immigrant & Black Population. 1850–1910.
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