Biden Designates Site Of 1908 Illinois Race Riot A National Monument

President Joe Biden on Friday designated the site of a 1908 race riot in Illinois a national monument.

Biden signed a proclamation marking the 116th anniversary of the Springfield riot in which a mob of white residents attacked Black-owned businesses. The rioters looted and burned not only businesses but homes, lynching two Black men in the process.

The new 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.

The riot began after a crowd of white people gathered outside the Sangamon County Jail to demand that 17-year-old Joe James and 36-year-old George Richardson be released so the mob could lynch them. James and Richardson ― who were Black ― had been accused of assaulting or attempting to assault a white woman.

One of their white accusers later recanted. But when James and Richardson were moved to a jail farther away, the mob attacked the Black community in violence that would last through the weekend.

In the ensuing attacks, Black men Scott Burton and William Donnegan were lynched and dozens of businesses were looted or vandalized. Donnegan had worked on the Underground Railroad to free enslaved people, and even made shoes for President Abraham Lincoln.

“Over 100 years ago this week, a mob not far from Lincoln’s home unleashed a race riot in Springfield and — that literally shocked the conscience of the nation,” Biden said Friday. “A lot of people forgot it. … We can’t let these things fade.”

The incident led to the founding of the NAACP civil rights organization, according to the National Park Service.

Springfield was the site of a recent killing of an unarmed Black woman by law enforcement. Sean Grayson, a former officer with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, faces three counts of murder in the fatal shooting of 36-year-old Sonya Massey in July.

Body-camera video shows Grayson yelling at Massey ― who had called 911 to report a possible prowler at her home ― over moving a pot of water from the stove just moments before shooting her.

“This fucking bitch is crazy,” Grayson could be heard telling other officers after shooting Massey.

Donnegan ― the man who was lynched in 1908 ― was reportedly an ancestor of Massey’s.

In 2022, HuffPost first reported that Aaron Paul Nichols, a former Springfield Police Department officer, had left the force after white supremacist social media posts surfaced online.