Springfield riot site designated as national monument by Biden
By: Zack Budryk (The Hill)
Democrats' celebration of these types of events is really, really weird.
President Biden on Friday designated a new national monument at the site of the 1908 Springfield, Ill., race riot, a deadly incident that paved the way for the creation of the NAACP.
In remarks from the Oval Office, Biden said the riot "shocked the conscience of the nation."
The president signed the proclamation flanked by Illinois Sens. Dick Durbin (D) and Tammy Duckworth (D) and Rep. Nikki Budzinski (D), who co-sponsored the bicameral legislation to create the monument that stalled in Congress. Also present were Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, NAACP President Derrick Johnson and White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory. Another sponsor of the bill, Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), was not present.
The riot began Aug. 14, 1908, after a mob of white men learned that two Black men awaiting trial, one on charges of raping a white woman and the other on charges of murdering a white man, had been transferred out of the local jail. Over the next two days, the mob rioted in Springfield's Black neighborhoods, killing a total of eight Black men. An infant who died of exposure after their family was displaced is often included in the riot's death toll as well. The riot was a high-profile incident of racist mob violence in a Northern city during a period when such episodes were associated with the Jim Crow South.
Biden took aim at state laws that seek to exclude incidents like the riot from history curricula in his remarks, saying, "I never thought I'd see people try to erase history … it's so important for our children and grandchildren to understand what happened."
The monument is the sixth designated under the Biden administration. The president has also expanded the acreage of two California monuments, the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. The Hill confirmed the White House was set to designate the Springfield monument Wednesday.
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Hey, let's have a fun weekend and go see where the race riot happened. Maybe there'll be a reenactment of a lynching.
That's what conservatives did back in the day.
Had a picnic during a lynching.
And they get to do it again. Thanks, Joe, you're a swell guy!
So, you agree. Progress.
Yeah, we're gonna build a great future by reliving the past. Just remember, Black kids can do anything except escape the legacy of a racist past.
So, you agree conservatives had picnics while Black people were being murdered back in the day and will do so again and you're blaming President Biden.
That's Cocoa Puffs.
Get into college without a democrats help, or get a job without a democrats help or raise their own children without a social workers help according to the current Potus.
That is the problem with a legacy, it's something that gets passed on from one generation to the next depending on how many years the legacy took to build. With several hundred years of slavery, discrimination, segregation, being prevented from buying homes, prevented from getting loans, prevented from accessing many schools and universities, being banned from many jobs and right-wing conservative bigots standing on their necks, black Americans have quite a legacy that the current generation has inherited.
But now the descendants of those right-wing conservative bigots are saying repulsive shit like "Well it's racist to give them a hand up or to help black Americans at all because if they need a helping hand that proves they're weak! The barriers that held them back for centuries have been lifted so now it's every man and every culture and color for themselves! Who cares if we white folk had a several century head start that we ALL fucking know was brutally racist, giving black Americans a helping hand is now racist against us because we're not getting that helping hand! Sure, we've had centuries of white affirmative action, but we don't talk about that anymore because it would expose us as being sniveling pieces of shit and hey, who would want to do that?...".
There are still laws on the books in certain states where black folks are still legally discriminated against.
'standing on their necks'
perfect description
Here is some actual terrible history on that subject . It happened in many places after the Civil War in the late 1800's, early 1900's. Not too many "conservatives" participating in those atrocities at the time though. Even if you feel that all the racist Democrats switched over to the Republican party in the 1960's, not many "lynching picnics" were going on after that.
So if we are truly honest about it, it is what racists and white supremacists did "back in the day", not what conservatives, or liberals, or progressives did. Today, those learning about racism during that period need to understand that it went WAY beyond modern political labels, Democrat or Republican, and that we all need to work together to make sure that terrible history and the hatred that was behind it is never repeated.
Except white people were lynched regularly too.
Okey dokey
Sure, but it was predominantly used as a form of terrorism or unjust punishment against blacks in many southern States during the years after the Civil War and into the mid 1900's as you can see from the following stats:
So, today's gop/republicans then
who were the 'conservatives' then
President Lincoln perhaps among the first with others to follow, like the moderate and radical Republicans in Congress who passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1871, and drove the passage of the 14th Amendment in 1868? Those Republicans involved in the election of Ulysses S. Grant and his efforts to break up the KKK as well?
Here's the problem with that sort of argument. I'm told my legacy is that of a white, privileged slave master that is superior to Black people. I'm told that is the legacy I have inherited as a birthright. So, how do I escape that legacy?
Examples?
Inheriting a legacy does not make anyone superior, so the "legacy" of past generations who wrongly believed they were superior has nothing to do with you potentially believing you're superior today. The legacy that many descendants of "white privileged slave masters" and their descendants after them that often treated black Americans with disdain and maltreatment and discrimination is often generations of wealth and equity passed from one generation to the next often in the form of home ownership in areas black Americans were denied access to, educations, schools, colleges providing a head start, a "hand up" if you will, that most black Americans were denied. So how do you escape that legacy? You don't escape it, you recognize it, accept that you're benefiting from it and then support programs for black Americans that attempt to give them a "hand up" just like your ancestors received back when the only kind of affirmative action was white affirmative action.
That response completely ignores my question. I am not a descendent of white privileged slave masters but that is the legacy that has been imposed upon me. I am a descendant of German abolitionists who fought to end slavery. I am a descendent of immigrants who moved west from the Shenandoah Valley through the Ohio valley where slavery was made illegal before the founding of the United States. So, how do I escape the legacy that has been imposed upon me? Why should I recognize a legacy that does not apply to me or my family heritage?
You are claiming Black people are trapped by a legacy of slavery and racism. But not all Black people in the United States are descendants of slaves; that legacy has been imposed upon all Black people in the US. The population of Somali immigrants living in Minneapolis are not descendants of slaves; that legacy has been imposed upon them. So, how do they escape that legacy?
Are you serious? No one is “celebrating” these things. It’s a memorial.
Are you suggesting we should never memorialize injustice to honor the victims and guard against future injustice? Is that for real? or are you just trolling for the lols?
We should just forget Manzanar? Wounded Knee? WT Actual F?
How fucking hypocritical by the party leader of the "tear down all reference to the civil war" party.
It's not "tear down all reference to the civil war". Not sure where you got that quote because that's just some hilarious bullshit. It is "tear down all celebrations and reverence for the confederacy" that thankfully got their bigoted racist asses kicked by real Americans.
Always the defense of the indefensible
[deleted][✘]
Democrats definitely got their asses kicked big time, of course there is always some moron who will try to claim they all became republicans now without any real proof.
If those aren't there, where would questions come from?
It would be funny if that claim wasn't so hilariously flawed and total garbage on the face of it. It really is sad how some refuse to acknowledge the large number of former Southern Democrats who felt their party was abandoning their racist ideals and thus switched parties over the last 40 years. The facts are glaringly apparent and no, the VAST majority of former white racist Christian conservative Democrats didn't all just up and move out of their family homes in their former confederate States and become northern Democrats who support affirmative action and the dismantling of the legacy of slavery and segregation. They stayed right where they are and switched parties which is why the former confederate State are ALL deep red Republican States.
"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are." - Republican political strategist Kevin Phillips in 1970 interview with The New York Times.
The proof is in the pudding as they say, and the Southern States filled with racist white confederate flag waving Republicans are more than enough evidence of the reality no matter what any sad fucking lying piece of shit defenders of those racists claim.
Exactly, where are the most racist cities. Still controlled by democrats.
Most Racist Cities in America 2024 (worldpopulationreview.com)
You shouldn't have any trouble naming 5, Clintons are still democrats, So is Biden, Byrd died a democrat, you made the claim. any chance you can back it up?
Lol.
Once they start labeling people "White Conservative Christians" for no real reason other than their own hate, facts are going out the window. .
1970–1979
[ edit ]1980–1989
[ edit ]1990–1999
[ edit ]List of party switchers in the United States - Wikipedia
"Using newly available data, we reexamine one of the largest partisan shifts in a modern democracy: Southern whites’ exodus from the Democratic Party. We show that defection among racially conservative whites explains the entire decline from 1958 to 1980. Racial attitudes also predict whites’ earlier partisan shifts. Relative to recent work, we find a much larger role for racial views and essentially no role for income growth or (non-race-related) policy preferences in explaining why Democrats
“lost” the South."
Why Did the Democrats Lose the South? Bringing New Data to an Old Debate (princeton.edu)
I know, facts and reality aren't really some folks preference, but it's a good read for anyone who isn't just another worthless lazy conservative bigot trying desperately to hide their blatantly racist roots.
So we should leave up monuments to the confederacy to help new generations think about and question the need for such celebrations of racism? Really? So you would support erecting dozens of statues of Hitler all over Germany with him looking regal and commanding attention so that modern day Germans wouldn't forget the 7 million + Jews Hitler abused and murdered? Ah, such a champion of history to make sure none of us forget the atrocities by taking up public space in our parks, streets and government buildings by displaying memorials to FUCKING racists who fought and killed other Americans all so they could continue OWNING other humans and treating them like cattle.
I don't live in Germany so I don't give a shit what they do.
Yet we are "remembering" the Springfield site as something that should not be repeated. You really need to think this through before you comment.
So you have a list of politicians who no longer wanted to be associated with the party of Klansman, good for you, any proof they were racist pieces of shit like Clinton, Biden or Byrd?
Have you ever seen the geographical breakdown of the congressional vote on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ?
What about support for LBJ's great society? Were the southern democrats who voted for that "conservatives?
Labeling someone "conservative" because they supported Jim Crow is simply ignorant. The Roosevelt loving new dealers voted for Jim Crow too. There were conservative southern racists and progressive southern racists.
The opposition to the Civil Rights Act corresponded to geography, not political party. Very few congresspeople from the south voted in favor, whichever party they were.
It’s sad that some have shallow understanding of the 60, not 40 year swing to the South being red at attribute the solely to racism. Perhaps they suffer from some sort of southernphobia.
Sure have. The Democrats fought its passage tooth and nail. It was up to the Republicans to get it passed.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
LBJ
A memorial remembering the 8 black Americans who were murdered by racists is VERY different than celebrating and memorializing confederate Generals who fought to keep black Americans enslaved.
We have many memorials of horrible events to remember the innocent victims like the memorial at Auschwitz. It's not celebrating what the Nazi's did to those in the death camps. We have memorials at Pearl Harbor to remember those who lost their lives that day when we were attacked as well as those brave soldiers who fought to defend us. We don't have a giant statue there memorializing Emperor Hirohito.
I would have no problem with monuments to the victims of the confederacy, to the slaves they abused and fought to keep enslaved. I wouldn't mind monuments placed all over the south celebrating the confederacy getting their asses kicked or bronze statues of the Union Generals, wouldn't that also "remind" everyone of the civil war? Problem is there are sadly many bigots in the South and all over our nation that want to celebrate and idolize the confederacy which is why they object to the taking down of the confederate general statues and memorials, and they still gnash their teeth over the fact that "their" side lost and no doubt many of those worthless pieces of shit would love to still see black Americans enslaved or at minimum legalized segregation. Those are who defend confederate statues and were there that day in Charlottesville chanting "Jews will not replace us!" and no, not a single fucking one of them was a "very fine person".
So it's okay to remember. That should stand for all history.
Who is advocating for tearing down all reference to the Civil War?
I have seen advocates for tearing down statues that cast confederate leaders as heroes. And that’s understandable. Not only did they engage in armed rebellion against the United States, but their cause was to preserve a system of slavery.
I do not think you will see those people calling for the removal of any memorial for the victims of that system.
If we leave history up to the far right the kids will be taught that lynching was a jobs program (casket tester) and Jim Crow was a Disney character.
I'm certain that it didn't take presidential action to ensure that this incident is part of the curriculum of Illinois public education.
It should be part of every curriculum that is teaching future generations about American history. Sadly, it seems some, mostly in former confederate States, want to gloss over and divert any blame for their ancestor's violent racist past to some weird fictional "other" white conservative racists that apparently just evaporated into thin air leaving only good God fearing white conservatives who have no connection to those racists in the same houses and same towns they grew up in which were previously heavily segregated and filled with discrimination by some "other" racist white folk who apparently, according to them, became liberal Democrats who support affirmative action and support black Americans and moved to California or New York from the former confederate conservative States that are now deep red States. Everyone now inhabiting those former confederate States and who defend confederate monuments and fly confederate flags are all the good white conservative Christians who just want what's best for black Americans and just magically appeared in those States after the racist whites all moved out... That altered American history would almost be hilarious if it wasn't such a monumental lie and so fucking sad that they're even trying such a moronic con game.
Sadly, run on sentences are difficult to read for comprehension and aren't good for sarcasm.
The article is about racial violence in the Land of Lincoln.
Exactly.
thats never stopped you before
Stopped what?