SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – A major Springfield health care provider has donated land to what will be a memorial to the city’s 1908 race riot.
The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reports the Springfield City Council accepted the donation this week from HSHS St. John’s Hospital.
The remains of homes that were burned during the riot were unearthed in 2014 during construction of a railroad underpass. Artifacts from a mid-19th-century immigrant neighborhood were also found.
Activists hope to raise $5 million for the memorial. The hospital last fall unveiled a “healing garden” as part of the memorial. It would include a painting depicting hospital employees caring for the riot victims.
Sixteen people died during three days of rioting in August 1908 when a white mob attacked black citizens in Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.
