On August 9, 2024, President Joe Biden established the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument as America’s newest national park site — the eighth addition to the national park system during the Biden-Harris administration. The new national monument will tell the story of the violent, racially motivated riot in President Abraham Lincoln’s hometown of Springfield, Illinois in 1908 that was a catalyst for important steps in the civil rights movement, including the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The Presidential Proclamation signed today details several days of mass violence that took place August 14–16, 1908, when a white mob attacked the Black community in the town of Springfield. Rioters lynched two Black men, looted businesses, and burned down homes. Afterward, a group of civic leaders – including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, W. E. B. Du Bois and Mary Church Terrell came together to launch the NAACP which went on to achieve momentous civil rights victories.
“This national monument will provide current and future generations an opportunity to reflect on the tragic events but also to be inspired by the resilience of the Black community and national leaders that went on to fight for social change and civil rights in America,” said National Park Service Director Chuck Sams.
The national monument is located where the violent assault began, in the Badlands neighborhood, and includes the foundations of five houses destroyed in the Springfield 1908 Race Riot. The national monument includes 1.57 acres of federal land, made possible through land donations from the City of Springfield and St. John’s Hospital of the Hospital Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, and with support from the National Park Foundation. The monument boundary encompasses additional lands where the riot occurred that may be donated to the NPS at a future date.
This is the eighth national park unit created during the Biden-Harris administration, including Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in Illinois and Mississippi, the expansion of Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park in Kansas, and most recently Blackwell School National Historic Site in Texas.