The Springfield, Illinois Race War (1908)
A mob of about 5,000 white men in Springfield wanted to lynch an African-American man who had been falsely accused of raping a white woman. An accusation that was later recanted when the white assailant who committed the crime was arrested.
The mob also wanted to lynch another inmate accused in a murder case. To prevent this, authorities secreted the two men out of the jail to safety.
When the lynch mob discovered the plot to move the inmates, they began to terrorize African Americans of Springfield and their supporters, destroying the restaurant of a wealthy white man who provided the car for the sheriff to transport the two inmates.
The mob then destroyed the African-American businesses in Springfield and finally a black residential neighborhood known as the Badlands. It was reported that at least nine black citizens died in the attacks and more than forty black families were displaced when their homes and businesses were burned.
The race war in Springfield helped inspire the creation of the NAACP a year.
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