Surmounting Adversities in the Land of Lincoln
The history of New Philadelphia illustrates significant elements of the systemic impacts of racism on citizens and communities in the United States. Similar experiences are presented in the development of other communities that struggled against such adversities. This chapter examines additional case studies of structural racism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Illinois. In his study of “sundown towns,” James Loewen found that many Illinois towns engaged in extensive discrimination in this period. Such sundown jurisdictions permitted African Americans access to their terrain as laborers during the day, but not as residents. His research showed that “almost all all-white towns and counties in Illinois were all-white on purpose” by the early twentieth century. In contrast, other communities embodied African-American aspirations. Fennell examines such racial dynamics using examples from archaeological and historical analysis of three more African-American communities in Illinois: Miller Grove, Brooklyn, and the Equal Rights settlement outside of Galena.