Illinois

Name: African Americans in Springfield
Brand: Mary Frances
SKU: 9781467108218
Price: 23.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Illinois history exceeds the capacity of the Sears Catalog for categorization and the World’s Fair for spectacle. And no matter what the self-appointed tour guide at the local diner might say, the heritage of the land of Lincoln doesn’t end with Capone’s demise. Like the Chicago Loop, the Prairie State’s past seems to defy straightforward chronology—Cahokia offered a version of urban sprawl more than a thousand years before the first Windy City skyscraper. From Park Forest to Cave-in-Rock, scan our shelf of Illinois history books with the unflagging enthusiasm of a Wrigley Field hot dog vendor. [View all Illinois books]

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African Americans in Springfield

$23.99 $12.00 Save 50%

African Americans in Springfield

9781467108218

$23.99

Springfield became the capital of Illinois due in large part to Abraham Lincoln—lawyer, politician, and president. Lincoln lived in Springfield from 1837 to 1861, and during the decade after his departure, the African American population in the city quadrupled. Although Springfield was dominated by railroads, coal mines, and government, African Americans also worked as doctors, dentists, lawyers, professors, politicians, public school teachers, firemen, insurance agents, entrepreneurs, soldiers, military officers, police officers, state troopers, artists, inventors, secretaries, cooks, laborers, car salesmen, and church leaders. After the Springfield Race Riot of 1908, the city became less welcoming for African Americans. Shortly after, however, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League were formed. Further gains under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership were made during the civil rights movement.

Chicago Marching

9781467151436

$23.99 $12.00 Save 50%

Examine the inflection points in Chicago’s history of protest.

A word packed with meaning and emotion, “protest” can be synonymous with both free speech and rioting. Chicago’s citizens and city officials have a long and reactive relationship based on the tension between those differences of perspective, from the 1855 Lager Beer Riot to the conversation surrounding Black Lives Matter and the flashpoints of extreme political polarization. But what led to pivotal events like 1886’s Haymarket Affair or 1963’s massive school boycotts? Joseph Rulli seeks to understand what provoked an explosion into violence or elicited a heavy-handed response.