Dark events remind us of importance of humanity Matt Wilkie, Springfield
On the recent 115th anniversary of Springfield’s darkest day, I visited the graves of Fred Coker and Horace Duncan. On Holy Saturday in 1906, these innocent black men were lynched by a mob and then burned under a replica of the Statue of Liberty at Springfield’s Park Central Square. They were lynched … under the Statue of Liberty … the day before Easter. Could the people in that crowd not see the humanity in Mr. Coker and Mr. Duncan? How can this be?
I’m a 48-year-old who moved from Seattle in 1983 as a sixth-grader. That first day at Jeffries Elementary, I started long-standing friendships in this community I love but wondered why there was so little diversity.