Sangamon Link: A look back at racism Springfield's hotels in 1881

Springfield hotels refused to house America’s best-known Black choral group in 1881. The result was nationwide condemnation, a rebuke from President James A. Garfield, and a scramble by embarrassed local residents to repair the city’s reputation.

The group was the Jubilee Singers, founded in the 1870s to raise money for Fisk University, an African-American college in Nashville, Tenn. The original Jubilee Singers, who are credited with popularizing the Black spiritual tradition, toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe; their audiences included President U.S. Grant and Queen Victoria.

The group that came to Springfield in 1881 was an independent descendant of the first Jubilees. They were scheduled to perform at the Chatterton Opera House on May 4 and 5.

Springfield had three first-class hotels in 1881: the Leland at Fifth Street and Capitol Avenue; the St. Nicholas, Fourth and Jefferson streets; and the Revere House, Fourth and Washington streets.

The Jubilee Singers had stayed at the Revere House, apparently with no controversy, when the group performed in Springfield a year earlier. The Revere’s manager, Maj. Edward S. Johnson, said he would have accommodated the singers again in 1881 if he had rooms available. The Revere had been fully booked by legislators and performers from a traveling circus, Johnson said.

But Johnson hedged when the Jubilees’ business agent, Henry Cushing, asked if the group could eat at the Revere if the singers found beds elsewhere. “Then they showed their animus immediately,” Cushing told the Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper. “They said if we would come after hours, eating at the second table or later, we might possibly find seats.”

Cushing didn’t even approach the St. Nicholas – hotel owner John McCreery had denied accommodations to the Jubilees the year before.

And Horace Leland, the Leland Hotel’s manager and namesake, was forthright about his racism.

“I run a hotel to make a living, and can’t afford to scare away my guests by bringing in a pack of ——,” Leland told the Chicago Tribune (the Tribune didn’t expurgate Leland’s quote). “They’re all well enough in their place, but God damn me if I want to eat with them, or sleep with them, or have any of my relatives marry ‘em, by God, sir.”

The fact that hotels in Springfield, home of Abraham Lincoln, wouldn’t accommodate African-Americans made news across the U.S.

When the story reached Washington, D.C., President Garfield “expressed great indignation,” the New York Herald Tribune reported. “(W)hen they come to Washington,” Garfield said, “if the hotels are closed against them, they will find the White House ready to receive them with a hearty welcome.”

Something similar eventually happened in Springfield. “A sufficient number of our citizens have opened their homes for the entertainment of the Jubilee Singers to insure ample accommodations for all,” the Illinois State Journal reported May 2, and the shows went on as scheduled.

The newspapers didn’t identify the volunteer hosts, but one of them almost surely was former Gov. John Palmer, who remained a Springfield resident after his gubernatorial term ended in 1873. Palmer, a longstanding advocate for Black civil rights, spoke on behalf of Springfield well-wishers when the Jubilee Singers gave their first Opera House performance on May 4.

According to the Journal’s story:

“The residents he represented, Palmer said, ‘desire to assist you in meeting and overcoming the prejudices that you so often encounter, and of which our own city, we fear, sometimes offers examples. They desire me to say to you that even now they can see that prejudice against your race is fading away. That within a few years, in this city where Lincoln lived, and which is honored by the possession of his remains, public opinion will soon be so improved and so elevated that the traveler will be allowed to take “mine ease in mine inn” without regard to race, color or previous condition of servitude.’”

Palmer, of course, was too optimistic about race relations in Springfield. Aside from the 1908 Springfield race riot, major local hotels were still denying rooms to Black people, even state legislators, well into the 20th century.

Originally published on SangamonLink.org, online encyclopedia of the Sangamon County Historical Society.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Sangamon Link: Jubilee Singers denied accommodations for 1881 visit