'This is history': Supporters urge Springfield Race Riot site to become national monument

The Rev. T. Ray McJunkins noted that several years ago it was a small group of people in Springfield championing the site of the 1908 Race Riot to become a national monument.

After Monday's listening session at his home parish, Union Baptist Church, once in the sights of those same rioters when it stood at 12th and Mason streets, McJunkins admitted he felt "overwhelmed" seeing more than 400 people in the church hall.

"I think it's a reality," McJunkins said of the site along the 10th Street railroad tracks and Madison Street becoming a national monument. "Nobody tonight talked about east side, west side. Nobody talked about division. What Washington, D.C., saw was Springfield, and it was a mixture of all of us and all of us were saying the monument needs to be here."

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Monday's session was facilitated by Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, Shannon Estenoz. She and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Brenda Mallory, spent the day in Springfield visiting the race riot site and the Lincoln Home area, which is part of the National Park Service.

The race riot site was the subject of a favorable special resource study regarding its eligibility for inclusion in the National Park System.

It could also become a national monument if President Joe Biden invoked the Antiquities Act, something McJunkins urged the administration to do during an April visit to the nation's capital.

Estenoz said the Biden administration is intent on telling "a more complete story of our nation's history, including Black history, including Native American history because Black history is American history."

Estenoz also expressed gratitude to Springfield for keeping the story of the race riot alive. Some figures put the casualty figure at 11 people with Black businesses destroyed and up to 2,000 Blacks uprooted from the city.

"It is so important that our nation not bury the painful chapters of our past," she said. "It is our collective duty to know them, to understand them, to learn from them, to interpret them."

The Park Service, she said, is the nation's storyteller and "puts you in the place where (history) happened."

During the Springfield Rail Improvements Project, an archaeological team from Fever River Research found seven homes, five of which were burned during the riot, and unearthed artifacts from a mid-1800s immigrant neighborhood.

Many in Monday's audience were hoping the story of the race riot is unearthed. Some who grew up in Springfield acknowledged they never learned about the event in school.

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"This is history," said Mayor Misty Buscher. "If you do not preserve history and teach further generations about history, it will repeat itself, so it's extremely important that we acknowledge the location of this site."

State Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, said the race riot was "the best of Springfield and the worst of Springfield. What you see in this room is the best of Springfield coming together."

The proposal has had bipartisan support from U.S. Reps. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, and Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, as well U.S Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, both Illinois Democrats.

The Sangamon County Board was expected to call upon Biden to designate site a national monument in a vote Tuesday. Chairman Andy Van Meter and several board members and county officials were present Monday.

Representatives from the local and national NAACP, founded in the aftermath of the riot, the ACLU, the Hospital Sisters Health System and the Southern Illinois University System were among supporters speaking Monday.

Ward 3 Ald. Roy Williams Jr., one of several city council members present, spoke for another proponent of keeping the race riot story alive: trailblazing educator and freedom and justice advocate Leroy Jordan, who died in 2020.

"He'd be very pleased to see this crowd tonight," Williams said.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; [email protected]; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Supporters want Springfield race riot site as national monument