In this piece: Ken Page, President of the Springfield chapter of the NAACP-- Mike Williams, organizer of the annual Juneteenth Celebration -- Carole Merrit, guest curator for the "Something So Horrible" exhibit at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

In this piece: Archived audio with Mattie Hale, Springfield resident during the 1908 Race Riot-- Springfield tourists take a walking tour of the Race Riot in downtown Springfield-- History Teacher Tammy Douglass brings the story of the Riot to her classroom at Southeast High School-- Springfield College / Benedictine University produces a series of monologues based on the 1908 Riot--

Springfield's Race Riot of 1908 took a toll on race relations in the Land of Lincoln. The Riot started after two black men were jailed, accused of crimes against whites. A mob formed seeking vigilante justice and chaos spread like wild fire. The then-Governor of Illinois called in National Guard Troops to put down the uprising, but not before two black men were lynched, black-owned businesses were burned to the ground, and wild gunfire. Several whites were killed in the crossfire. Years after the Riot, scholars in the capital city pieced together first-hand accounts from the riot after conducting oral histories with some in the city who remembered, or were caught up in the riots. The man who spearheaded that effort is Cullom Davis, a retired historian with the University of Illinois at Springfield. In the 1970's he gathered several first-person oral history accounts of the Riot.

In this piece: An examination of a production titled "Paint It Red"... which centers on the 1908 race riot in Springfield by weaving together the voices of participants and victims in a poetic narrative, demonstrating how a literary lens can bring added texture and a deeper understanding of historical events.