(AFP) – US President Joe Biden will on Friday sign a proclamation designating the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot in the state of Illinois as a national monument, the White House has announced. The designation occurs during the 116th anniversary of the Springfield Race Riot, which took place from August 14-16, 1908, as Biden tries to burnish his legacy in his last months in office.
The anniversary commemorates two days of riots when mobs of white people went on the rampage in the state’s capital, Springfield, indiscriminately looting, burning, and destroying Black-owned homes and businesses. The attack, which occurred just blocks away from President Abraham Lincoln’s residence, sparked national outrage that contributed to the creation of such organizations as the nation’s top civil rights group, the NAACP.
“The new national 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,” said Biden’s office in a statement. The proclamation will protect 1.57 acres of federal land in Springfield, recognizing “difficult moments that have been ignored or obscured for far too long.”
The White House stated that the Springfield 1908 Race Riot was “emblematic of a larger series of lynchings and racist mob violence that targeted Black communities across the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” The country recorded 2,503 lynchings of Black people between 1882 and 1910, it added.
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