Presidential Document2024-18999
Establishment of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument
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Published
August 22, 2024
Signed
August 16, 2024
Issuing agencies
Executive Office of the President
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 163 (Thursday, August 22, 2024)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 163 (Thursday, August 22, 2024)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 67821-67827]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-18999]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 163 / Thursday, August 22, 2024 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 67821]]
Proclamation 10792 of August 16, 2024
Establishment of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot
National Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
In August 1908, mere blocks from the former home of
President Abraham Lincoln, a white mob attacked the
Black community in Springfield, Illinois, lynching two
Black Americans and burning homes down to their
foundations. By the time the National Guard quelled the
violence, the mob had looted and destroyed businesses,
razed city blocks, and displaced hundreds of people
from their homes. Labeled by the media as a race riot,
the event was emblematic of the racism, intimidation,
violence, and lynchings that Black Americans
experienced in communities across the country in the
late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The horror that
became known as the Springfield 1908 Race Riot drew the
attention of national newspapers and Black and white
activists interested in social change. In the wake of
the devastation and ensuing outcry, a group of
visionary civic leaders launched the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
which went on to achieve momentous civil rights
victories and continues to work toward racial justice
and equity.
Today, the foundations of destroyed homes and the
objects they contain are tangible markers of these
historic events and reminders of the impact that the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot had on our Nation. The area
located between North 9th and 11th Streets, and between
East Mason and East Madison Streets, constitutes the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site. This site weaves
together two important threads in our Nation's story:
the hateful violence targeted against Black Americans,
and the power of dedicated individuals to come together
across racial lines to transform shock and grief into
hope and action.
At the turn of the 20th Century, the United States was
still struggling to fulfill the promises of the
Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the
Constitution--amendments that abolished slavery;
guaranteed due process and equal protection under the
law; and prohibited abridgement of the right to vote on
account of race, color, or previous condition of
servitude. Numerous States and municipalities,
primarily in the South, passed anti-Black legislation,
including Jim Crow laws, to enforce racial segregation
and to maintain white structural power by restricting
Black people's daily lives. As millions of Black people
migrated to towns and cities in the North seeking a
better life, they were often confronted with racial
bias, segregated schools, discriminatory and
restrictive housing practices, and other forms of
discrimination. Black people were also subjected to a
nationwide wave of racial violence that began after the
Civil War. Between 1882 and 1910, there were 2,503
recorded lynchings of Black people in the United
States. Many lynchings during this grim chapter of
American history occurred during riots led by white
mobs engaged in a broader pattern of violence, similar
to the one that took place in Springfield.
There, on Friday, August 14, 1908, a crowd of mostly
white men gathered outside the Sangamon County Jail,
which was 2 blocks from the edge of the Badlands
neighborhood, a community northeast of the center of
the city that included many low-income Black residents
and families. The mob
[[Page 67822]]
was calling for the lynching of two Black men: Joe
James and George Richardson. James stood accused of the
murder of a white man and attempted assault on his
daughter. Richardson was accused of sexually assaulting
a white woman.
The sheriff, hoping to defuse the situation and avoid
the white-mob lynchings that had occurred in similar
circumstances, arranged for the two men to be quietly
transferred to a jail in another town. Harry Loper, a
local white leader who shared the sheriff's concerns,
agreed to help with the transfer. When the crowd
learned of the sheriff's and Loper's actions, it
erupted in violence. The mob wreaked havoc and
destruction in the surrounding Badlands and Levee
neighborhoods--attacking and destroying dozens of
Black-owned businesses and residences, as well as some
Jewish-owned businesses and other businesses that
served the predominantly Black community. Loper also
paid a price for helping the men; after he returned,
the mob set fire to his car and vandalized his
restaurant.
One of the buildings the mob torched was in the
Badlands neighborhood on 12th Street between Madison
and Mason Streets where Scott Burton, a Black barber,
was trying to protect his home. At approximately 2:30
a.m. on Saturday, August 15, 1908, the mob beat Burton
into unconsciousness before dragging him half a block
south to the corner of Madison and 12th Streets. There,
he was further brutalized and hanged from a tree, and
he died from his injuries. All the while, the rioters
celebrated his lynching.
On Saturday, the second day of the riot, the violence
briefly abated as State militia reinforcements arrived
and Governor Charles Deneen designated the Illinois
State Arsenal as a temporary refuge for Black
residents. Black firefighters of Firehouse No. 5
responded to fires and fought to quench the flames and
save the homes of Black residents and Black-owned
businesses, even after being dismissed by the Mayor of
Springfield. Despite these actions, by 7:00 p.m.
Saturday evening, crowds again amassed and resumed the
mob violence of the previous night.
That same day, the riot reached the home of William K.
Donnegan, a Black 84-year-old retired cobbler who had
made shoes for Abraham Lincoln and served as an
Underground Railroad operative. Donnegan was married to
a white woman and lived with his family in a nearby
middle-class white neighborhood. On Saturday night, a
group of white men gathered outside of Donnegan's
house, beat him with bricks, and cut his throat with a
razor. They dragged him across the street and hanged
him from a tree in the neighboring schoolyard, just 2
blocks from the Illinois State Capitol. The police and
National Guard personnel found Donnegan still alive,
and took him to St. John's Hospital, where he received
medical care along with other people injured in the
riot--Black and white alike. Although he survived the
night, he died the next day from his injuries.
Soon after the riot, George Richardson's accuser issued
a signed statement confessing that her assailant had in
fact been a white man. Joe James's story took a
different turn. His lawyer tried to remove James's case
from Sangamon County, arguing he would not be able to
get an impartial jury there, but those efforts failed
and James was tried and convicted in the same community
that carried out the race riot. On October 23, 1908,
James was executed by hanging at the Sangamon County
Jail. Only one white rioter was convicted of a violent
crime in connection with the destruction wrought on
Springfield's Black community. In a poignant
postscript, the two men lynched, Scott Burton and
William K. Donnegan, were laid to rest in the same
Springfield cemetery as President Lincoln.
The national and local press covered the Springfield
1908 Race Riot extensively. The devastation of the
Badlands neighborhood and nearby sites captured the
attention of prominent civil rights leaders and spurred
new action. In response to the Springfield 1908 Race
Riot, an interracial group of dozens of civil rights
leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois, William English
Walling, Mary White Ovington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and
Mary Church Terrell, issued an open letter in February
1909 ``taking stock of the nation's progress''
[[Page 67823]]
on the centennial of Lincoln's birth. Invoking
Lincoln's words from 1858 that ``[a] house divided
against itself cannot stand,'' the group ``call[ed]
upon all the believers in democracy to join in a
national conference for the discussion of present
evils, the voicing of protests, and the renewal of the
struggle for civil and political liberty.''
This call led to a meeting in the spring of 1909 of a
group initially called the National Negro Committee to
discuss forming a permanent, national organization that
would advocate to combat lynching and racial prejudice,
improve the lives of Black Americans, and secure the
civil and political rights guaranteed to them by the
Constitution. On May 12, 1910, the National Negro
Committee formally named the new organization the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP).
For more than a century, the NAACP has been at the
forefront of key legal and political movements to end
lynching, remove barriers of racial discrimination, and
advance civil and political rights. The NAACP and its
legal team devised the transformative, decades-long
legal strategy culminating in Brown v. Board of
Education (1954), in which the Supreme Court declared
the ``separate but equal'' doctrine to be
unconstitutional and gutted the legal underpinnings of
segregation and Jim Crow laws.
The NAACP, along with partners and allies, turned the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot's legacy from one of tragedy
alone into one that led to enduring progress and
change. Yet those violent and fateful days had
persistent discriminatory effects on Springfield.
Although the rioters did not succeed in driving Black
residents from the city entirely, their actions led to
the displacement of Black people from the Badlands and
other affected neighborhoods and paved the way for so-
called ``urban renewal projects'' that erased much of
the neighborhoods' physical imprint. One of the
country's first public housing projects was constructed
on remnants of the Badlands neighborhood. The 8-block
John Hay Homes housing complex, built in the 1940s,
provided low-income housing, primarily to white people.
The John Hay Homes and other projects drastically
altered the landscape, demolishing blocks of structures
to develop facilities including high-rise apartments,
low-rent apartments, an expressway, and a civic center.
Notwithstanding the changes to the surrounding
neighborhoods, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site, a
2-block area stretching northward from East Madison
Street between North 9th and 11th Streets, still
contains archeological remains and scars of the riot.
The site, which has been identified as the approximate
point where the violent assault on the Badlands
neighborhood began in 1908, provides some of the last
physical remains of the race riot and the neighborhood
it destroyed, including the charred foundations of five
houses burned by the white mob in 1908.
Archeological excavations of the site have uncovered
other historic objects remaining at the site, including
a partial cellar, stone steps, and a brick walk. This
area and the archeological artifacts it contains have a
singular ability to tell the story of the race riot and
its impacts on Black residents at this pivotal point in
Springfield and the Nation's history.
Archeological studies have concluded that the site
likely contains significant additional resources and
artifacts that could help further illuminate the
history of the Badlands neighborhood. In addition to
the five burned houses, the site encompasses the plots
of several other buildings demolished in the riot.
Spared the architectural erasure of urban renewal, the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site can help bring greater
attention to this chapter in American history. The
National Park Service has recognized the historical
significance of this site to civil rights history by
adding it to the African American Civil Rights Network.
Preservation of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site
will protect the objects of historic interest found
therein from removal, development, or other activities
that could erase their presence in the area. It will
also ensure that the site and its objects remain
available for future generations to learn
[[Page 67824]]
about the Springfield 1908 Race Riot and how this
brutal event near President Lincoln's home underscored
the pattern of racially motivated violence perpetrated
on Black people throughout the country and catalyzed
the formation of the NAACP. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, one
of the co-founders of the NAACP and a national hero who
led the campaign against lynching, described the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot as showing that ``the hue
and cry once started stops at no bounds.'' Protecting
the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site is essential to
preserve and narrate the history that galvanized civil
rights leaders to establish an institution to work for
real and lasting change, creating hope for our
democracy out of the embers of this neighborhood in
Springfield, Illinois.
WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code
(the ``Antiquities Act''), authorizes the President, in
his discretion, to declare by public proclamation
historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric
structures, and other objects of historic or scientific
interest that are situated upon the lands owned or
controlled by the Federal Government to be national
monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of
land, the limits of which shall be confined to the
smallest area compatible with the proper care and
management of the objects to be protected; and
WHEREAS, the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site preserves
some of the last remaining objects of historic interest
from the Springfield 1908 Race Riot, memorializes the
area where these tragic and notorious events occurred,
and has been found to meet the criteria for national
significance by the National Park Service in its June
2023 Special Resource Study; and
WHEREAS, the City of Springfield, Illinois, has
expressed support for the establishment of a national
monument to be administered by the National Park
Service; and
WHEREAS, the City of Springfield has donated fee
interest in approximately 0.39 acres of city-owned land
within the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site to the
National Park Foundation; and
WHEREAS, St. John's Hospital of the Hospital Sisters of
the Third Order of St. Francis has donated fee interest
in approximately 1.18 acres of land within the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site to the National Park
Foundation; and
WHEREAS, the National Park Foundation has relinquished
and conveyed all of the lands and interests in lands
associated with the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site
described above to the Federal Government for the
purpose of establishing a unit of the National Park
System; and
WHEREAS, the City of Springfield owns additional land
within the Springfield 1908 Race Riot Site that
potentially contains archeological artifacts and has
indicated an interest in making further land donations
in the future; and
WHEREAS, the designation of a national monument to be
administered by the National Park Service would
recognize the historic significance of the Springfield
1908 Race Riot Site, particularly the events that took
place at these locations from August 14-16, 1908, and
their role in inspiring the formation of a national
civil rights organization, and would provide a national
platform for preserving and interpreting this important
history; and
WHEREAS, I find that all the objects identified above,
and objects of the type identified above within the
area described herein, are objects of historic interest
in need of protection under section 320301 of title 54,
United States Code, regardless of whether they are
expressly identified as objects of historic interest in
the text of this proclamation; and
WHEREAS, I find that the boundaries of the monument
reserved by this proclamation represent the smallest
area compatible with the proper care and management of
the objects of historic interest identified above, as
required by the Antiquities Act; and
[[Page 67825]]
WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and
protect the objects of historic interest associated
with the Springfield 1908 Race Riot;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by the authority vested
in me by section 320301 of title 54, United States
Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that
are situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or
controlled by the Federal Government to be part of the
Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument (monument)
and, for the purpose of protecting those objects,
reserve as part thereof all lands and interests in
lands owned or controlled by the Government of the
United States within the boundaries described on the
accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part
of this proclamation. The reserved Federal lands and
interests in lands within the monument's boundaries
encompass approximately 1.57 acres. The boundaries
described on the accompanying map are confined to the
smallest area compatible with the proper care and
management of the objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the
boundaries of the monument are hereby appropriated and
withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection,
sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public
land laws, including withdrawal from location, entry,
and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition
under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal
leasing.
The establishment of the monument is subject to valid
existing rights. If the Federal Government acquires any
lands or interests in lands not owned or controlled by
the Federal Government within the boundaries described
on the accompanying map, such lands and interests in
lands shall be reserved as part of the monument, and
objects of the type identified above that are situated
upon those lands and interests in lands shall be part
of the monument, upon acquisition of ownership or
control by the Federal Government.
The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument
through the National Park Service, pursuant to
applicable legal authorities and consistent with the
purposes and provisions of this proclamation. For the
purpose of preserving, interpreting, and enhancing the
public understanding and appreciation of the monument,
the Secretary of the Interior, through the National
Park Service, shall prepare a management plan for the
monument. The management plan shall ensure that the
monument fulfills the following purposes for the
benefit of present and future generations: (1) to
preserve the historic and cultural resources within the
boundaries of the monument; (2) to interpret the story
of the Springfield 1908 Race Riot and its significance
to the history of racial violence that occurred across
the Nation; and (3) to commemorate the history of the
Civil Rights Movement and civic leaders' work to build
transformative organizations, including the NAACP. The
National Park Service shall develop the management plan
in consultation with local communities, organizations,
and the general public to set forth the desired
relationship of the monument to and support for other
sites evaluated in the Springfield Race Riot Special
Resource Study such as the Badlands Riot Area, the
Levee Riot Area, the Sangamon County Courthouse/Old
State Capitol, Firehouse No. 5, the home of Mabel
Hallam, Kate Howard's Boarding House, the site of Scott
Burton's lynching, the site of William Donnegan's
lynching, the Illinois Executive Mansion, Camp Lincoln,
St. John's Hospital, and the gravesites of Scott Burton
and William Donnegan in Oak Ridge Cemetery.
The National Park Service shall consult with
appropriate Federal, State, and local agencies and
nongovernmental organizations in planning for
interpretation, appropriate commemorative design, and
visitor access and services at the monument.
The National Park Service is directed, as appropriate,
to use applicable authorities to seek to enter into
agreements with other entities to address
[[Page 67826]]
common interests and promote management efficiencies,
including the provision of visitor services,
interpretation and education, establishment and care of
museum collections, and commemoration and preservation
of historic objects. These entities may include the
Lincoln Presidential Foundation, the NAACP, the
Springfield and Central Illinois African American
History Museum, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke
any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation;
however, the monument shall be the dominant
reservation.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not
to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature
of the monument and not to locate or settle upon any of
the lands thereof.
If any provision of this proclamation, including its
application to a particular parcel of land, is held to
be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and its
application to other parcels of land shall not be
affected thereby.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
sixteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord two
thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
ninth.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3395-F4-P
[[Page 67827]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD22AU24.004
[FR Doc. 2024-18999
Filed 8-21-24; 8:45 am]
Billing code 4310-10-C
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</html>Indexed from Federal Register on August 22, 2024.
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