A Lot of Activism in the Neighborhood

Two small houses once stood here, occupied in 1850 by the Jenkins and Blanks families, who shared both walls and a commitment to improving the lives of African Americans in Springfield. James and Martha Ann Blanks, free people of color who arrived in the 1840's, became advocates for freedom, and James emerged as a champion of African American education; in the 1850's he helped organize a school fundraiser and joined others who believed education was "the only sure way to redeem ourselves from the bondage that we are now in." The Jenkins family arrived sometime in 1844, and Jameson Jenkins filed his Certificate of Freedom with the Sangamon County Recorder of Deeds on March 28, 1846, to prove he was free. A drayman who transported goods, Jenkins held an occupation well suited to his work as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and on January 16, 1850, he successfully transported escaped slaves north to Bloomington, Illinois. Excavations at the Jenkins lot in 2013 uncovered a ceramic fragment from a children's mug printed with the words "Reward of Merit," a term commonly used in the 19th century for certificates or objects given to children for achievement in school. Jameson Jenkins was born in North Carolina in 1810 and died in 1873, Martha Ann Pelham Blanks was the sister of Jameson's wife Elizabeth, and most of the Jenkins and Blanks family, including James Blanks, are buried in Springfield's Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Springfield, Illinois · United States