The modern civil rights movement hit a new peak last week in Illinois. It marked the movement coming full circle, in a way, back to the state of its birth more than a century ago.
Illinois is the unsung “alpha and omega” of the movement.
It was the 1908 Springfield, Illinois, race riot that sparked the creation of the NAACP. That marked the beginning of what would become the modern civil rights movement that evolved through the 1950s and ‘60s and is still evolving today.
And last week, Illinois hosted the nomination by one of America’s major parties of a candidate for president who has broken barriers her entire career … who comes from a family of bold civil rights activists … who could be our first woman president, our first president of Asian descent, and only our second Black president.
If Springfield was the civil rights movement’s “alpha,” then this year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago and Kamala Harris’ campaign are, to date, its “omega.” Barely more than a month ago, nobody knew it would be Harris’ convention. Yet the history of the civil rights movement makes poetry of the fact she accepted her party’s nomination in Illinois.
Chicago has played a crucial role in this history. In the wake of the Springfield riot, the anti-lynching crusader and Chicagoan Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a leading national voice against that racial violence and one of the original co-founders, six months later, of the NAACP. And Chicago played host to a key civil rights moment featuring another NAACP co-founder, W.E.B. Du Bois.
In 1929, it was where Du Bois dispatched white supremacist Lothrop Stoddard’s toxic eugenics claptrap, arguing for racial equality in what was billed at the time as “one of the greatest debates ever held.”
It is the home of Mayor Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson. Rev. Jackson’s presidential campaigns offered me one of my first experiences in political organizing. I was captivated by his campaigns and led my county’s arm of Youth for Jackson when I was 14.
Those Black leaders’ ground-breaking campaigns helped create a tailwind for Black candidates across the country to make history in the 1980s. Doug Wilder became the first African American elected statewide in Virginia as lieutenant governor in 1985. In 1989, Wilder became the first elected Black governor in the U.S. and David Dinkins the first Black mayor of New York City.
Springfield race riot site becomes national monument
I had this epiphany about Illinois’ special place in the civil rights movement right before traveling to Chicago to take part in various Democratic convention events.
It was at the White House, of all places. I had the privilege of being in the Oval Office for President Joe Biden’s dedication of the site of the 1908 Springfield race riot as our country’s newest national monument. Among the crowd were some of Illinois’ top political leaders. One of them mentioned that Illinois does not have a civil rights trail.
Interior Secretary Deb Haaland hugs Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., as President Joe Biden, who is joined by civil rights leaders, community members and elected officials, puts away his pen after signing a proclamation in the Oval Office Aug. 16 to designate the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument.
I thought about that as I was walking out and a photograph in the Oval Office caught my eye. It was Biden with his mother and then President-elect Barack Obama on election night in 2008 in Grant Park.
I remembered that night and was immediately awash in more memories close to my heart and my sense of patriotism. I was in Springfield when Obama launched his campaign for president there in 2007. I have always remembered that campaign kickoff vividly because of its historical significance and how cold it was. It will be even more deeply ingrained in my memory because at the rally, I stood with my friend, Kamala Harris, then the district attorney of San Francisco.
Springfield was the home of Abraham Lincoln. When the NAACP was formed in 1909, six months after the Springfield race riot, it was on what would have been the Great Emancipator’s 100th birthday. In 2007, nearly 100 years after that, Springfield was where Obama chose to begin his presidential journey.
Once again, it was that pattern of things coming full circle back to Illinois in our nation’s long march toward freedom and justice.
Clearly, Illinois deserves to have several Civil Rights Trail-recognized sites.
Last week’s convention was one for the ages. The speeches, the optimism, the energy and yes, the joy. It was also just the latest of Chicago’s and Illinois’ immense contributions to America’s progress toward the day when the rights and dignity of all people are fully realized.
This week we celebrate Women’s Equality Day. It is the anniversary of women gaining the right to vote with the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920. As our country sits poised to potentially elect its first woman president, it is also fitting to remember that Illinois was part of the very first group of states (along with Wisconsin and Michigan on the same day) to ratify that amendment.
Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club and a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
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