One hundred years ago this month, mobs of white residents tore through Springfield, hanging two black men, burning dozens of homes and businesses, and forcing families to flee. As the city commemorates the violence, the event inspires deep feelings among people from all backgrounds:
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Thomas Richmond understands history and racism, and wants to make sure his grandson understands them, too.
The retired history teacher took 8-year-old Panagiotis to a museum exhibit about the Springfield riot to show him how far America has come in the past century. He said blacks can't truly understand where they stand in America today without knowing the past and how ugly racism can be.
"A child has to know where he comes from. He needs to know what this country is about," he said.
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Tamara Douglass, a high school history teacher in Springfield for 14 years, has taken it upon herself to make sure her students hear about the riot, which until now has gotten little notice.
The story usually provokes a strong reaction, she said.
"They're angry. They're wondering why they have gotten into their teen years without learning about it," Douglass said. "They're shocked at what humans beings do to each other."
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The riot in the hometown of Abraham Lincoln delivered an unpleasant message to much of the country, argues researcher Roberta Senechal de la Roche.
"White Americans in the North pretty much thought violence against blacks was a Southern thing. The Springfield riot really came as a bolt of lightning to Northern newspaper readers," said de la Roche, author of the book "Sociogenesis of a Race Riot." "The question was, if it can happen in Springfield, maybe it can happen anywhere."
Many of the rioters shouted about Lincoln during their rampage. "Curse the day Lincoln freed the slaves," was one cry.
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To the Rev. Wesley McNeese, it made perfect sense for Springfield's churches to have joint prayer services to mark the centennial of the riot.
Some in the city's ministerial alliance fearing such services would open old wounds, but the group ultimately decided to go forward with eight "solemn assemblies" _ one at each of the markers noting a key location in the violence.
Now black churches and white churches are holding joint social functions and inviting each other's pastors to preach. McNeese, who leads the New Mission Church of God, thinks they can keep building on the good will.
"This was the right thing to do. There's no question in my mind," he said.
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The violence was shocking by itself. Even more shocking to 18-year-old Evan Preston was the macabre interest in riot souvenirs.
People kept chunks of the trees where men were hanged. They bought postcards showing the rubble of buildings destroyed by the mobs.
"They turned it into tourism dollars, this horror that occurred in their hometown," said Preston, studying the riot in a summer program at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library.
"This would be like seeing a shirt that had the towers falling on 9/11 _ people making money off the tragedy that everyone had to endure."
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Murray Hanes, then a young man, watched as the Springfield mob hanged a man. He watched as they set fire to homes _ with people still inside, he said decades later.
"The Negroes would come to the window and rush back _ they didn't dare come out for fear they'd get shot. They went back in. And anybody that I knew or talked to said there were Negroes in there that were burned up," he said in an oral history recorded in the 1970s.
Hanes denied sharing any guilt for the violence and grew defensive at any questions about his role. "It's a funny thing _ I can understand why few people want to talk. You can see right away that you're accused of participation just by assumption."
