Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – Four days of educational events are taking place at Lincoln Library. The Springfield 1908 Race Riots is the topic of these events.

Springfield’s NCAAP Vice President Candace Trees was with Lincoln Library’s Director Gwen Harrison on the WTAX Morning Newswatch to discuss the upcoming events, called “Three Hot Days in August: The Aftermath.”

“We’ve got a lot of good things going on and we’re going to start off on Thursday,” said Harrison. “We’re going to have IDNR, the Illinois State Museum, the Illinois State Museum Society. We’ve got the NAACP. 
We’ve got the Sangamon Experience, we’ve got the Hoogland, we have a lot of wonderful partners. We started on this mission last year in September. We started planning for these days’ events immediately after our last event happened back in 2025. 
And I love the fact that we start with the clean slate, and then you see what you have before you. Four days of activity.” 

Why should everyone know about the 1908 Race Riots?

“1908, we found that there were a series of lynchings all over the United States, and that spurred the formation of the NAACP in 1909,” said Trees. “So many unfortunate, ugly things that people did to one another. So, we felt that we’ve been working for the last 12 months on putting this together with a lot of partners, just to bring forth these things, that we can keep the 1908 race riots before the public, so that the young children know about it. It’s important that my grandchildren learn and those behind us so that we can keep this up.”

To find more information on this event, CLICK HERE