[34][35] White Americans were increasingly more negative, fearful, and xenophobic toward the immigrants, who they deemed to be biologically inferior, culturally and religiously odd, and generally substandard with a proclivity to filth, laziness and violence.

Within the country's racial hierarchy, European immigrants were perched below whites, but above black people, fending off degrading ethnic slurs such as "Hunky" (Hungarians), "Guinea" (Italians), and "Polack" (Polish).

Social tensions rose due to the swelling immigrant population, the decrease in job stability, and the movement of a few upper middle class black people into white neighborhoods.

They are looking to the protection of their own loved ones...the white women of the South are in a state of siege...Some lurking demon who has watched for the opportunity seizes her: she is choked or beaten into insensibility and ravished, her body prostituted, her purity destroyed, her chastity taken from her, and a memory branded on her brain as with a red-hot iron to haunt her night and day as long as she lives...

...I have three daughters, but, so help me God, I had rather find either one of them killed by a tiger or a bear and gather up her bones and bury them, conscious that she had died in the purity of her maidenhood, than have her crawl to me and tell me the horrid story that she had been robbed of the jewel of her womanhood by a black fiend.

Our rule is to make the woman witness, prosecutor, judge, and jury...I am satisfied to get out of the world such creatures.In the period after the end of Reconstruction, approximately 1897–1917, lynchings coincided with mass disenfranchisement efforts throughout the country.

The city had been plagued with rampant political corruption, for 20 years, when Indiana's "Blocks of Five" voting system was introduced to the community, enabling a vice ring to dominate local affairs.

On Saturday, July 5, 1908, at approximately 12:45 a.m., shortly after the saloons closed for the night, an intruder allegedly entered the home of a 45-year-old white hoisting engineer at a mine, Clergy "Posey" Ballard, located at 1135 North Ninth Street.

[104][120] Ballard's son, Homer, also gave a description of the assailant: The negro was dressed in light trousers, wore a new pair of shoes, blue shirt, brown winter cap and a black coat.

[103] Around 5:30 a.m., on Sunday July 5, four young white women – Clara Noll, Sadie Van Dyke, and Anna and Henrietta Ford – coming from a wake, discovered Joe James sleeping off a hangover, in the North End, about a half-mile away from the Ballard home.

"[110] He was awakened the next morning, around 6:00 a.m., near Reservoir park (where Lanphier High School now sits), when a group of young white men, led by Charles and Homer Ballard, grabbed him and proceeded to beat him until he bled "profusely" from his nose and ears:[141][142] I don't remember.

"[154] James made no comment about his predicament, only referring reporters back to his initial statements: Stubborn to the last ditch, and refusing to say a word that will either better or aggravate his defense, the negro wards off all queries propounded on him.

The police and sheriff force have been baffled and they have decided not to question him further...[155]On August 14, the Illinois State Journal reported that a "respectable" young married woman had been attacked in the same working-class neighborhood as Clergy Ballard's – the North End.

While people were distracted, watching the firemen, Werner enlisted 49-year-old Harry T. Loper, a wealthy restaurateur, a commissary of the Second Brigade of the Illinois National Guard, and owner of one of the few automobiles in Springfield, to drive James and Richardson to McLean County Jail, about 65 miles away, in Bloomington, for their safety.

As the mob tore into the building, "Dandy Jim," whose real name was James Smith, tried to protect his business and several black women who lived above his saloon, by firing at the crowd through his second floor window.

[194]The mob torched its way through the Badlands, totally destroying the area, where "a few men would enter a shack, and after tipping over the bed and tearing open the mattress, would pour on a little oil and apply a match.

The militia finally dispersed the crowd late that night after reinforcements arrived after 2:00 a.m. Scott Burton, a 65-year-old black man, had a small barbershop, located at 12th and Madison, that catered exclusively to white clientele.

It is a sorry comment upon American civilization that no better use has been made of our resources of law, education and religion than to have allowed that population to have become, in large part, so depraved that the new race of white barbarians...trust no means of protecting themselves from them except the blood and fire of extermination.

The isolation to which the increasing race antipathy consigns the Negro populations in the cities of the North, East and West, as well as the South, may confidently be reckoned upon to produce, everywhere all the elements, for just a crucifixion of its justice, humanity and religion as the nation has suffered in Springfield.

[225][226] At least one black man is on record of having a nervous breakdown, when the police arrested him and sought to have him committed to a mental hospital, after finding him taking lumber from the lumberyards, stating his determination to "rebuild all the burned homes in the east end.

However, there were several more unreported deaths, such as Louis Hanen, a white man who was struck in his chest, groin and chin, along with John Colwell, by a volley laid down by the militia near Twelfth and Madison.

Several hundred went to the Arsenal; however, many refused to live there and wanted to leave the city, as they felt unsafe: For God's sake, mister [Deneen], give me enough money to make myself and child to Missouri.

For example, the same day the Springfield riot began, in Pensacola, Florida, "large crowds" were reported waiting outside the jailhouse with "excitement" to lynch a black man accused of assaulting a white woman.

[284] It was reported that black people were thoroughly "over the fact that they [are] deprived in the big doings" around Springfield, and stipulated that, from this point out, the social order of the city had changed: The colored population hereabouts will be represented only by the gents who slip the soup [to the white guests].

[296] But on November 2, some of the black men were released, if they could post a $1,000 bond, "with the understanding that they were to boost for [Fred] Mortimer," who was running for "the most important county office," State Attorney, in an election taking place the following day.

[373] Hallam would again recant her accusation – this time of Burton's alleged son – later admitting that she lied in order to cover up an assault suffered at the hands of her husband after he found out about an affair she was having with another white man, when she began exhibiting symptoms of her STI.

[401] George Wilson, a black man, testified that he saw James at Dandy Jim's around 9:00 p.m., and saw him again, at Ed White's saloon, around 11:00 p.m., carrying a can of syrup and a loaf of bread, while drinking until he did not sound "right.

"[114] However, the small, two-bladed penknife was always determined to be incapable of inflicting the types of wounds that Ballard sustained, in particular the "knife thrust" that punctured his lung and the deep cuts across his arms, below his elbows, that had "severed muscles to the bone.

This created a perception that they were "under siege," and felt compelled to take action to assert and maintain their dominance in the social arena, and punish those who they deemed to have transgressed against them:[88] [The Levee] has been allowed to exist because of political conditions.

...we recognize this sad chapter in history and realize that from the aftermath comes insight and education, helping us to better deal with racial issues...Sonya Massey was shot and killed by a police officer in Springfield on July 6, 2024, after calling 911 for assistance.