Easter Sunday, Nineteen Oh Six

On Easter Sunday, April fifteenth, nineteen oh six, a mob gathered on the public square of Springfield, Missouri. Before the night was over, three Black men had been lynched on or near that square, and within days much of Springfield's Black community had been driven from the city in an episode of racial terror that historians now count among the most destructive in Missouri's history. The immediate trigger was a criminal accusation, but the deeper causes were economic competition, political resentment, and the organized momentum of a society that used violence to enforce racial hierarchy.

The three men killed were Horace Duncan, Fred Coker, and Will Allen. All three were Black. None was given a trial.

The mob acted with the participation, or the indifference, of local authorities. Contemporary newspaper accounts documented the event in detail, including participation by some of the city's otherwise respectable citizens. The Springfield lynchings circulated in reform networks across the country and were cited in the years that followed as evidence of why a national civil rights organization was necessary.

The aftermath reshaped Springfield's demographic map. Black residents who had built businesses, churches, and community institutions in the city either fled or were forced out. The neighborhood along Boonville Avenue that had anchored Black Springfield was effectively destroyed as a community.

What happened on that square is a matter of documented historical record. It happened in daylight, in a crowd, in a city that had municipal government and law enforcement present. The historical marker is there now.

The record is there. Springfield has not always moved quickly to reckon with this chapter, but the reckoning has begun.