President Biden will designate a national monument on Friday at the site of a 1908 race riot that laid waste to a Black community in Springfield, Ill., joining civil rights leaders and Illinois lawmakers at the White House to commemorate the 116th anniversary of the rampage.
The proclamation comes as Mr. Biden looks to burnish his legacy during his remaining months in office. It also takes place nearly six weeks after the fatal police shooting of Sonya Massey, a 36-year old Springfield resident, whose death renewed national conversations surrounding racism and police violence and drew a direct reproof from the White House.
“Sonya’s death at the hands of a responding officer reminds us that all too often Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways many of the rest of us do not,” Mr. Biden said in a statement after the shooting last month. “Sonya’s family deserves justice.”
The two-day riot in 1908 was sparked by a white lynch mob that arrived at a local jail to kill two Black men being held there, and that then flew into a frenzy after learning that the men had been transferred to another facility. The furor — which occurred not far from Abraham Lincoln’s home — left several people dead, destroyed dozens of Black homes and businesses and required scores of Illinois state militiamen to put down. Outrage at the racial violence spurred the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The group asked last year that the president recognize the site, and the process continued through a National Park Service study of homes burned during the riot and other surviving structures near the city’s Madison Street and 10th Street rail corridor. The designation on Friday will protect around 1.57 acres of federal land in the vicinity.
“Our history is not just about the past, it’s about our present and our future,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “The Springfield 1908 race riot national monument will help us remember an unspeakable attack on the Black community and honor the Americans who came together in its aftermath to help deliver on the promise of civil rights.”
