Adams Street

After the August 1908 Race Riot, Joe James, a black man, was tried and convicted for the murder of Clergy Ballard, and although he was eighteen years old and, as a minor, not subject to the death penalty, he was nevertheless executed on October 23, 1908. During the grand jury investigation of the alleged rape of Mabel Hallam, a white woman, by George Richardson, a black man, Mrs. Hallam admitted that the accusation had been fabricated, and Richardson was released and returned to a peaceful life in Springfield. In August 1908, a special grand jury returned 107 indictments against nearly 80 white riot subjects on charges ranging from malicious mischief to murder, but the trials that followed resulted in only one conviction, for petty larceny.

Springfield, Illinois · United States