Springfield residents push for a 1908 Springfield Race Riot National Monument

(Special to The Dallas Examiner) – SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Department of Interior recently hosted a public meeting at Union Baptist Church in Springfield, Illinois. During the meeting, community members called on President Biden to commemorate the site of 1908 Springfield Race Riots as a national monument. Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Shannon Estenoz, Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks listened to community leaders as they expressed their support for Biden to use the Antiquities Act to designate a national monument in Springfield& – which included elected officials, faith leaders, conservation advocates and local residents. The Springfield site would be the first national park to tell the history of race riots in the U.S. and would document one of the country’s worst examples of mass racial violence, where a White mob attacked and lynched Black residents of Springfield and burned their homes and businesses within blocks of the former home of Abraham Lincoln. “Making the site of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot a National Monument will give all Americans the chance to know their history so something so horrible as this will never happen again,” said Ken Page,...