The Springfield race riot of 1908 was an act of mass racial violence committed against African Americans by a mob of white Americans and European immigrants in Springfield, Illinois, between August 14 and 16, 1908. The riot was caused by the accusations and arrest of two black men, Joe James and George Richardson. James was accused of murdering Clergy Ballard and attempting to rape his daughter, Blanche, in a home invasion. Richardson was accused of raping Mabel Hallam. The police and white residents used scant evidence to back these accusations.
A mob of mostly white residents gathered at Sangamon County Jail, demanding the release of James and Richardson, so they could lynch them. Sheriff Werner staged a distraction, while Harry Loper drove James and Richardson to McLean County Jail for their own safety. After the crowd learned that Loper and Werner arranged the suspects' transfer, they proceeded to riot in "the Levee" and "the Badlands" area.
In the immediate aftermath, 17 people died (including two who died of suicide), an unknown number injured, property damage amounted to $150,000 (approximately $5 million in 2024), and 2,000 black residents left the city.
In the wake of the riot, Richardson would be released after authorities concluded the alleged rapist had a sexually transmitted infection and found no such disease on Richardson. James would be hanged at the Sangamon County Jail after proven guilty by an all-white jury on October 23, 1908. Approximately 150 mob participants were arrested, though few would ever be convicted. One notable example would be Abraham Raymer, who was convicted of petty larceny. Spending only 30 days in jail and paying a $25 fine.
Background
Home invasion and murder of Clergy Ballard
Clergy Ballard's 16-year-old daughter, Blanche, returned home after midnight on the early mourning of July 5. Blanche alleged to have just fallen asleep, when she was awakened by the presence of "a strange form" lying at the foot of her bed. Thinking it was her brother, Charles, arriving home, Blanche touched the dark figure and asked, "Is that you, Charlie?" She received no answer. Then she asked if it was Charles again, then grabbed the "form's" hand and felt alleged "hard substances" in it. Frightened by the touch, she flinched, and "the form jumped away, mumbled something and ran into the parlor." Where he proceeded to go from room to room.
Blanche called out to her mother, Gertrude, which was said to have awakened her father. Ballard went to Blanche's room, and tried to approach the man. However, "before Ballard could close in on the man," he fled. In his undergarments, "not knowing exactly which way the intruder had gone," Ballard reportedly went outside to his front porch, where he allegedly "encountered a negro who was coming around the house." Ballard was then attacked by the attacker with either a knife or a razor. It was unknown how the fight transpired, but Ballard was reportedly "cut to ribbons" with a sharp weapon, presumed to have been a razor. After he was cut, Ballard allegedly "staggered back to the porch." Ballard would be labeled a hero who prevented a rape against his daughter.
Homer and Charles, Ballard's sons, ran outside and chased the attacker. Rather than continue to chase the attacker, they retreated back home, to help their father. As they were helping Ballard off the ground, Ballard allegedly raised his head and pointed to a man standing. Ballard told his sons, "There's the negro now. For God's sakes, get him boys, for he's killed me." Charles and Homer left their father again, and the two chased the man again. Some of Ballard's neighbors also joined the pursuit. Ballard's family then brought him inside their home and tried to help him, but could not "stanch the gust of blood." Police Chief Wilbur F. Morris was awakened and alerted. He placed every officer in town on alert. The police took Ballard to Springfield Hospital. Clergy Ballard succumbed to his wounds and died around 11:45 a.m.
Joe James found
On July 5, Joe James was discovered by four white women (Clara Noll, Sadie Van Dyke, Anna Ford, and Henrietta Ford) sleeping off a hangover, in the North End. Only half-mile away from the Ballard home. Previously, James was drinking, gambling, and playing the piano in the Levee area, Springfield's Black district of saloons and brothels. While two of the girls watched James, the other two went to a park phone and called the Ballard home, asking for men to come there to investigate. Charles and Homer, along with two neighbors, Pledge Sears and Joseph Edwards, went to where James was sleeping.
The men allegedly found James with blood on his clothes, and a coat "thrown over his head." They woke him and beat him while a crowd gathered around to watch. The Ballard brothers, Sears and Edwards, dragged James for half a block, beating him while the crowd chanted "Kill!" It was "only the arrival of officers" that prevented the mob from killing James. James made no effort to resist or defend himself, even as he was dragged for half-a-block toward a nearby telephone with the intent of lynching him. Three deputies then stepped in, stopped the men from beating James, and arrested James. He was booked into the jail at 6:20 a.m.
Joe James accused
James's face was so badly beaten that he was rendered "incapable of speech," and did not "look much like a human being." The police decided to wait until the swelling around his mouth had gone down before "sweating him." Police Chief Morris was confident that he would get a confession from him. James insisted in jail that he could not remember what he had done after midnight Saturday. "I was so drunk I don’t know where I was or what I did," he said. The arresting officer, J. T. Headrick, added that James had nothing in his pockets when he was arrested.
James was said to be identified by Sheriff Deputy, Harry Taylor, who identified the cap, and the piece of torn shirt, as belonging to James. James was also said to have been identified by those who had chased him, members of the Ballard family, and by the bloody "penknife" that Officer Jack Golden, accompanied by Ballard's sons, found after James's arrest. However, the police verified that James had no weapon on him when he left the prison on the afternoon of July 4.
James was immediately labeled "the murderer." However, newspapers questioned the logic of the reported event, and admitted finding his motives to be "difficult to understand." Robbery had been ruled out because nothing in Ballard's house was "molested," and Ballard's home would not attract a burglar. But with the alleged intrusion occurring in the bedroom of Ballard's daughters, and with James being black while the girls were white, it was assumed that James must have been attempting to rape the girl(s).
Prior to James's arrest, the police thought the assailant, who had robbed a victim of a coat the night before, was probably "the same negro who cut Ballard." Though the victim's description of the assailant did not match the description of James, James became the only suspect after Homer claimed to have found materials of the assailant at their home.
Alleged rape of Mabel Hallam
Mabel Hallam, claimed that on the night of August 12, at her home, a black man cut the screen door to the back door of her home, threatened to kill her, then dragged her, naked, from bed out into her garden, where he raped and beat her unconscious.
George Richardson was working with a group of men when police saw working and assumed that the perpetrator was "probably" among the group. The police took the men, took their clothes (after changing into different clothes) and, delivered them to Hallam's home, where she pointed out Richardson as her attacker. Richardson professed his innocence, maintaining that he was at home with his wife, Maud. Maud validated Richardson's alibi and was committed to testifying in his defense.
However, the police claimed that his coat was torn and they found "a trace of blood" on his coat. This was in line with Hallam's statement that she "tore her assailant's coat." Despite multiple eyewitness account claiming that Richardson was on his porch with his wife at the time of the attack, police arrested Richardson and took him to the county jail, where Hallam hesitantly picked him out of a lineup of potential suspects. She cautioned that she could not be certain if Richardson was her alleged attacker because "all colored men looked alike" to her, telling Richardson. "I believe that you are the man," she said to Richardson, "and you will have to prove that you are not." Richardson was charged with rape and put in a cell with Joe James.
August 14 Once Mabel Hallam "positively identified" her attacker, a crowd of about 3,000 white men gathered in downtown Springfield, looking to lynch James and Richardson. The crowd, numbering about 5,000, went to the Sangamon County Jail, surrounded the scaffolding that was being built there for Joe James, and demanded the prisoners be given to them so they could "lynch the niggers!" Around 4:30 p.m., the commander of the Third Division of the Illinois National Guard, was alerted to the conditions around the jail by Captain H. H. Tuttle, an Assistant Surgeon, with the Fourth Infantry. Shand claimed to have alerted Governor Charles Deneen, who directed him to consult with the sheriff of the area, Sheriff Charles Werner. When Shand arrived at the jail, Werner told Shand that sending troops would not be necessary. Shand told Werner that if he rejected Deneen's offer of troops, and a riot broke out, that Werner would be responsible. Werner then requested one pre-cautionary Company be placed at the State Arsenal building. Shand convinced Werner to place two additional companies there.
Werner believed he had the situation under control as he had pre-arranged for firemen to respond to an orchestrated false fire alarm at 5:08 p.m. While people were distracted, watching the firemen, Werner enlisted 49-year-old Harry T. Loper, to drive James and Richardson to McLean County Jail, about 65 miles away, in Bloomington, for their safety. Loper was escorted by Sheriff Deputies Kramer, Hanrahan and Rhodes, and Sergeant of Police, Fred Yanzell. Once they reached Bloomington, James and Richardson were put on a train to Peoria, as Werner feared the mob might go to Bloomington and try to retrieve them. After the crowd learned that Loper had arranged the suspects' transfer, the trickery upset them more. Werner ordered the crowd to disperse.
Rioting The frustrated crowd then destroyed Loper's restaurant, and set his automobile, parked in front of the restaurant, on fire. The mob then destroyed "the Levee," and "the Badlands." A lynch mob beaten Scott Burton unconscious before dragging him one block south to Madison and Twelfth streets on Saturday. A clothesline was found and used as a noose around Burton's neck. The mob then stripped him of his clothes, mutilated his body, and tried unsuccessfully to set his body on fire.
On Saturday, another mob smashed the doors and windows of the William Donnegan home. They pulled Donnegan, from the house and beat him. "Have mercy on me, boys, have mercy," Donnegan cried out to the mob. But there was no mercy. Donnegan's throat was slashed with a razor by a mob participant. The mob then tied with a thin clothesline around his neck, and hung him to a small tree in the Edwards School yard near his house. He later died at St. John's Hospital, Sunday morning at 11:30.
Effects Following the attacks, 10,000 tourists traveled to Springfield to see the aftermath. With the roughly 3,700 militiamen in town, and many black people returning to the city, a food shortage ensued. Business was largely halted for 10 days. News of the attacks spread across the country:
Injuries and deaths