William English Walling, The Race War in the North: White Mob Violence Against Blacks in Springfield, Illinois in 1908. The Independent, September 1908. Spartacus Educational: “In August, 1908, Walling and his wife witnessed the Springfield Riot in Illinois, where a white mob attacked local African Americans. During the riot two were lynched, six killed, and over 2,000 African Americans were forced to leave the city. In an article entitled, The Race War in the North, that he wrote for The Independent about the riot, Walling [wrote] that ‘a large part of the white population’ in the area were waging ‘permanent warfare with the Negro race.’ Walling argued that the only way to reduce this conflict was ‘to treat the Negro on a plane of absolute political and social equality.'”