Quartet of Stunning Images from the 1908 Springfield Race Riot

[Illinois]: [1908 Springfield Race Riot]:

[Four Real Photo Postcards Documenting the Destruction and Carnage in the Wake of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot].

[Springfield, IL: 1908]. Four silver gelatin real photo postcards, each 3.5 x 5.5 inches, with caption titles printed in the negatives Minor silvering, light edge wear. With penciled date on each verso, "10-4-08," perhaps the date of the original owner's acquisition. Very good overall. Very good. Item #12954

A striking visual record capturing scenes of destruction in the aftermath of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot. The conflagration began like most other race riots -- with an African American man falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white woman (the accuser would later publicly recant her allegation, also not uncommon in these situations). The riot developed after the Springfield sheriff removed the accused African American prisoner and another Black man suspected of another crime from the jail and sent them to Bloomington, Illinois in an attempt to prevent mob violence. It didn't work. When the local white population heard the accused had been spirited away without their knowledge, they raged for two days. In the process, this white mob comprised of the "best citizens" of Abraham Lincoln's hometown lynched two African American men, injured scores of others, and destroyed about two dozen businesses and three or four dozen homes. The event directly contributed to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The present group highlights the carnage and murder, and are detailed as follows:

1) Mob Violence Springfield Aug - 08 [caption title]. We have had this postcard one time before, with manuscript annotations indicating that it pictures a "Negro home destroyed at time of Race Riot." The scene shows what little remains of an urban house razed to the ground, showing the smoldering ruins piled around a pair of narrow brick chimneys. Many African American homes and places of business were either burned or destroyed or both during the two-day spree.

2) Springfield Race War. Aug 08 [caption title]. Similar to the photo above, but with another house situated near railroad tracks, almost completely destroyed, with three of the outer brick walls still mostly intact and the inner portion of the house simply gone. Two figures stand to the left of the building, and appear to be National Guard soldiers.

3) Lopers Place After Riot Aug 08. Auto Burned. Springfield [caption title]. This photo pictures law enforcement officials and citizens posed outside Loper's Restaurant in Springfield. The establishment belonged to Harry T.  Loper, a wealthy local businessman and owner of one of the only cars in town. Loper had driven the two African American men away from Springfield at the behest of the police and was met with an angry mob upon his return. In short order, the mob began to throw bricks through the windows of Loper's restaurant and proceeded to destroy the place. They also burned Loper's car. All of this can be seen in the present image.

4) Tree Where Burton Was Hanged by Mob Springfield Aug 08 [caption title]. The most grim of the four photographs, it pictures just what it says, taken from across the street at the corner of Madison and Twelfth streets, and with a few men and children standing next to the tree and staring at the photographer. This is the site where the riotous mob lynched Scott Burton, a 65-year-old local African American barber, in a heinously barbarous manner. The mob then burned down Burton's barbershop and later chopped up the tree where they hanged him and kept pieces of it as souvenirs.

Contemporary photographic relics of the 1908 Springfield riot are exceedingly rare.

Price: $1,750