The Jones Alley Business District in Springfield was home to barber shops, restaurants and other businesses that served Black customers when white-owned establishments would not.
Black churches baptized their congregants at Silver Springs Park, the only park open to African Americans in a segregated Springfield.
Before integration, Lincoln High School is where Black students attended classes and the community came together for dances, plays and pageants.
Those are a few of the sites that will likely be memorialized in Springfield’s new African American Heritage Trail, a walking path that will wind between historic monuments on the city’s north side, the Springfield-News Leader reported.
Cheryl Clay, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, is part of the committee working on the trail project.
“Black history is very rarely taught in Springfield public schools, especially at the local level,” Clay said. “This is a way to educate — not only our youth but people who live here — about the history of our city.”
Clay said it’s important to understand the city’s heritage — the good parts and the bad.
“If you don’t know your history, you’re doomed to repeat it,” she said.
The idea for a trail came out of a three-year research project called “The Journey Continues” by Missouri State University professors Lyle Foster and Tim Knapp. They’ve interviewed longtime residents about their memories and experiences as African Americans in Springfield.
Foster called the project “cathartic.”
“The whole experience has been very powerful,” Foster said. “Stories were not always happy stories.”
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Source: Philly Trib
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