Causes Of The Springfield Race Riot Of 1908

Baltimore, Maryland, April 27, 2015. The people were rioting due to repeated unjust racial treatment against the African-Americans. Cars were set on fire, as well as the streets. People were attacked in the middle of the city. With that in mind, history repeats itself, so was there an event, similar to this one, not too long ago? The terrible race riot that occurred in Springfield in 1908 sparked many people’s attention that racism is still very much alive and rampant everywhere. As in wars, political downfalls, and other events as such, the Springfield race riot of 1908 had a few major causes. On July 4, 1908, Joe James, a black man, was accused of “killing a white mining engineer, Clergy Ballard.”1 The white people of the city were upset, but not completely outraged, about the killing of a white man by a black man. About a month later, George Richardson, a black citizen as well, was “suspected of the rape of a white woman, Mabel Hallam,

13.”2 That event was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the white people’s eyes. Of course, crimes of all kind done by every race, but not this close together. The next day, a huge mob of angry white people went to the Sangamon County Courthouse in Springfield and demanded to have the two men and plan to hang them.3 However, when the mob went there, they were informed that the two men they aspired to hang were transported to Bloomington and were no longer in Springfield. The crowd then became outraged when they realized that they “had been duped” by the police.4 So, instead of leaving and forgetting about the whole ordeal, the furious mob began to rave the streets and create chaos and havoc for two days straight!5 Even before all of this occurred, there had