, 7 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
In the 1908 Springfield race riot, a white mob burned the homes of more than 40 black families and killed a number of people before being put down by the state militia. The event directly led to the formation of the NAACP.

Sadly, it was not the end of the rioting.
An even bigger riot in East St. Louis in 1917 left as many as 250 black citizens beaten, burned and hanged. The event left the entire nation shocked and more than 10,000 people marched in protest in New York.
Nor did it end there: The "Red Summer" of 1919 saw white mobs rioting in some 40 cities across the country, as big as New York and Philadelphia, and as small as Millen in Georgia and Ellenton in South Carolina. Homes were burned. Thousands were killed.
White "gun club" members crossed the Savannah river to track and kill black sharecroppers in South Carolina fields. White politicians blamed it all on the black victims, who they portrayed as part and parcel of a communist conspiracy.
Today's white-power agitators want to keep monuments to the glory of the slavery-era South and the treasonous Confederates. They don't want people to know about the true ugly "heritage" of racism.
I have a particular interest in the 1917 riot. My wife and I were both born in East St. Louis (same doctor, even). My dad was editor of the local daily newspaper during the Civil Rights era. projects.stlmag.com/1917-stl-race-…
Even growing up in the area, I would be ignorant of the East St. Louis riot had I not met Elliott Rudwick in college and tracked down his book. I have a couple of copies ... somewhere. Still little-known #BlackHistory amazon.com/Race-Riot-East…
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