Light and shadow: A review of Pekin’s African-American history and historiography

By Jared L. Olar

Local History Program Coordinator

As Pekin’s Bicentennial Year continues and we now find ourselves in Black History Month, it is fitting that we turn our attention now to Pekin’s African-American history. Compared to most other areas of our city’s history, this is an aspect of Pekin’s history that has been little researched and whose stories have been little told (which is why I have made it a point over the past five years or so to devote time to researching and writing about Pekin’s Black History here at “From the History Room”).

In fact, up till now the most extensive account of Pekin’s African-American history in the standard published works on Pekin’s history is that found in the 1974 Pekin Sesquicentennial volume. While the Sesquicentennial’s account is far from uninformative, the very nature of a celebratory commemorative historical volume dictates that its treatment of its topics will be more in the nature of a review or survey – and one that will tend to downplay or overlook aspects of history that are unpleasant, lamentable, scandalous, or matters of controversy or contention. Yet I also find it a regrettable omission that the Sesquicentennial’s author did not tell the story of Pekin’s Christian ministers, Rev. Lewis Andrew of First United Presbyterian Church and Rev. Larry Conrad of First Methodist Church, who with their Marquette Heights colleague Rev. David B. Jones answered the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to clergy to come to Alabama in March 1965 in the struggle for civil rights for America’s blacks, as was reported in the Pekin Daily Times back then. However, the Sesquicentennial author did make sure to tell (on page 180) of Sen. Everett M. Dirksen’s crucial role in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed.

On 20 March 1965, in the midst of the 1960s struggle for African-American civil rights, the front page of the Pekin Daily Times brought the news that two Pekin clergymen and one Marquette Heights clergyman had answered Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. call for Christian ministers to come to Selma, Alabama, to march for voting rights for African-Americans. The story of these three ministers will be told in full next week at “From the History Room.”

Sen. Everett M. Dirksen of Pekin visits the Lincoln Memorial.

In this article, I do not hesitate to discuss some of these difficult or unpleasant matters, for I am of the opinion that Pekin’s story should be honestly told, including the brighter and delightful aspects as well as the darker and unpleasant episodes – if for no other reason than to illustrate just how very far Pekin has come from its darker days and how many positive changes have taken place since then.

Nance Legins-Costley

One of the strengths of the Sesquicentennial’s treatment of Pekin’s African-American history is its account of Nance Legins-Costley (1813-1892), whose story has been spotlighted many times in recent years and who, along with her son Pvt. William Henry Costley of the 29th U.S. Colored Infantry, is now rightly honored with historical markers and a downtown Pekin park named and dedicated in her honor. Nance Legins-Costley is one of Pekin’s most notable and historically significant pioneer settlers, and she was also Pekin’s first known black resident. Pekin’s earliest historical records show that Nance and her family were loved and honored by their community.

But prior to 1974, no standard published work on Pekin’s history had ever tried to tell her story – especially the story of the important court case that secured freedom for herself and her children. The Sesquicentennial tells Nance’s story on pages 5-6 and gives a very informative account of the 1838-39 Cromwell v. Bailey and 1841 Bailey v. Cromwell cases.

Unfortunately our knowledge of Nance and her family in the 1970s was incomplete, so the Sesquicentennial’s writer could not provide any information on Nance’s family or Nance’s final years and death in Peoria and burial in Moffatt Cemetery. It was only in 2019 that Nance’s date of death and place of burial were discovered by Debra Clendenen of Pekin and announced for the first time anywhere here at “From the History Room.” Even so, the Sesquicentennial’s account was a big step forward for Pekin’s African-American historiography, and helped give later researchers such as Carl Adams a place from which to start.

Nance Legins-Costley’s historical marker at Legins-Costley Park in downtown Pekin.

Lloyd J. Oliver’s marriage

After the story of Nance Legins-Costley, past Pekin historical works have often retold the story of the marriage of Lloyd J. Oliver of Pekin, an African-American hero of the Spanish-American War. The Sesquicentennial volume also retells this story on pages 154 and 175, though it repeats a mistake regarding Oliver’s Christian name, and the maiden name of his wife Cora, that dates back to Ben C. Allensworth’s 1905 “History of Tazewell County.” Allensworth misread Oliver’s first name as “Howard” instead of “Lloyd,” and misread his wife’s name as Cora “Hoy” instead of “Foy.” Despite that confusion of names, the marriage of Lloyd Oliver and Cora Foy is one of the best remembered events of Pekin’s African-American history, because the organizers of the 1902 Pekin Street Fair chose to honor Lloyd Oliver’s service to his country by making the marriage of this African-American war hero from Pekin a central event of the Street Fair, and thousands of people crowded downtown Pekin to witness the wedding and celebrate their union.

This photograph of African-American Spanish-American War soldiers was originally printed with the caption, “Some of our brave colored Boys who helped to free Cuba.” Lloyd J. Oliver of Pekin served in the Regular Army during the war, his regiment suffering great casualties in the capture of San Juan Hill. PHOTO COURTESY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Ku Klux Klan in Pekin

The 1974 Sesquicentennial does not shy away from a discussion of the darkest and most shameful episode in Pekin’s history, when our city was home to the Ku Klux Klan’s Illinois regional headquarters. On page 83, the Sesquicentennial volume tells of the Klan’s control of the Pekin Daily Times in the early 1920s, reducing the city’s primary newspaper to a mouthpiece of racist, nativist, anti-immigrant, and anti-Catholic bigotry. According to the Sesquicentennial volume, the years when the Pekin Daily Times was owned and operated by three leading Klansmen were also years of careless mismanagement of the newspaper, for although the newspaper had produced bound volumes of its pre-1914 issues, “apparently those volumes disappeared during the Klan years.” As popular as the KKK in Pekin was in certain circles back then, there was also strong opposition and disgust, as indicated by the fact that the Pekin Daily Times then alienated so many of its subscribers that it almost went under.

Another reference to the KKK is found on page 106, in the tragic story of the deadly January 1924 Corn Products explosion. Describing the community’s rescue and relief efforts, the volume says, “Allegedly, the Pekin Ku Klux Klan was also on hand. Thirty-six of its members divided into three shifts to aid in the relief, providing food for the Salvation Army tent; trucks and drivers for transporting both men and materials; and aid to bereaved families in the form of food, fuel, and clothing.”

There was no “allegedly” about it – the Pekin Klan, which had dubbed itself “The All-American Club” – was then an established presence like the men’s clubs and community service groups that were popular at the time, and their members were also affected by the tragedy like everyone else in Pekin. The KKK was also known for ostentatious displays of public charity. The Sesquicentennial on page 109 also mentions that when fire destroyed the Hummer Saddlery on 1 Nov. 1924, the Pekin Klan “offered assistance, including the use of the ‘Klavern’ on First Street (the old Pekin Roller Mills Building).”

The Sesquicentennial on page 172 devotes two rather oddly-worded paragraphs to the subject of the KKK in Pekin, as follows:

“It would be misleading to state that the Ku Klux Klan did not exist in Pekin; in fact, it is fairly certain that Pekin was the headquarters for a Klan — to be precise, organization number 31 of the Realm of the Invisible Empire, whose Grand Titan, in 1924, was recorded as one O. W. Friedrich. Further, the Klan, for a time at least, had their Klavern located at the Old Pekin Roller Mills Plant. The group owned the Pekin Daily Times in the early ‘20’s, and its meetings, policies, and plans were front page news, and its ‘good works’ much praised.

“In all fairness, though, it should be pointed out that the Klan was one of the leading social organizations of the day, and many people belonged in order to participate in the group’s activities, much as one might today belong to some fraternal organization. There seems to have been a distinct inner circle, relatively small in number, and a larger, more social outer circle Much more could be said, but it would serve no real use in this type of publication.”

The choice of words – “It would be misleading,” “In all fairness” – bespeak the writer’s understandable discomfort and abashedness, even shame, regarding this aspect of Pekin’s history. Not only would it be “misleading” to state the KKK wasn’t in Pekin, it would be flat out false. And the apologetic paragraph, “In all fairness . . .,” tends to excuse the KKK’s members for the racism (a word that never appears in the Sesquicentennial) that was so prevalent in America in that era, and that was intrinsic to the Klan’s central aims. This account also must be faulted for failing to acknowledge the Pekin Klan’s hateful intimidation of blacks, Jews, and recently-arrived ethnic families. A more forthright overview of Pekin’s Klan years can be found on pages 21-22 of the late Robert B. Monge’s “WW2 Memories of Love & War: June 1937-June 1946,” which says:

“The decade of the twenties and early thirties brought the KU KLUX KLAN to Pekin. Their ceremonial headquarters were on the second floor of the Pekin Daily Times building located at the southeast corner of Fourth and Elizabeth Streets. The Klan owned and published the paper during 1923, 1924 and 1925, praised its ‘good works’ and gave front page coverage of its meetings, policies and plans.

“For a time it was district headquarters for all the Klan chapters in Illinois. It was a terribly low period for the immigrants who lived here and they were the main target of the KLAN. They were devastated by the Klan’s acts of intimidation. Huge crosses were burned on the land known as Hillcrest Gardens (the present site of Pekin Insurance Company) to intimidate the immigrants. Many of these families huddled in fear in their homes nearby; however, the immigrant men were ready with shotguns just in case they were threatened physically.”

An image from a darker time, this illustration appeared in a Pekin Daily Times advertisement for a major Ku Klux Klan gathering in Pekin — the “Klantauqua” — that took place in late August 1924.

The presence – and absence – of African-Americans in Pekin

Finally, the Sesquicentennial on pages 175-176 devotes eight full paragraphs to Pekin’s African-Americans, and attempts to address the troubling absence of black people from Pekin for most of the 20th century. Much of this account is quite interesting and generally informative, and it covers much of the same ground that this weblog’s 2020 “From the Local History Room” series on Pekin’s African-Americans covered, only in less detail than we have been able to provide here.

The Sesquicentennial account is notably sensitive about Pekin’s reputation and does not acknowledge the role that racist attitudes and the KKK’s presence had, instead blaming the past absence of blacks here on economics and education (which were indeed reasons, albeit certainly not the only reasons). Understandably, the Sesquicentennial volume, written as part of a celebration of Pekin, would not be the appropriate publication to grapple with such issues. Here, then, is the Sesquicentennial’s account, in which he names several individuals and families who have become very well known to me over the past few years):

“But one ethnic element important in earlier generations has slowly become ‘invisible.’ Blacks came to this town by at least 1830 in the person of Nancy, the employee (sic – indentured servant) of the Cromwells discussed in the Overview, and many are mentioned throughout the long period ending after World War I. They had difficulties here, but not the kind of troubles the myth-makers would have us believe.

“The principle problem was the necessity of learning the German language—a barrier to many whites during the same period. Another drawback was the Blacks’ lack of skills, an inevitable problem in an era in which most of them remained uneducated. Nevertheless, they found jobs and homes for their families in the frontier community. According to Bates’ Directory, Nancy apparently lived the remainder of her life in Pekin (a period of about thirty-five [rather, 50] years) after the celebrated Supreme Court appeal argued by A. Lincoln.

“By 1845 the ten-person family of Moses Shipman and the Peter Logan family of four, along with at least six other Blacks, lived in the town. The families of Charles Cramby and John Winslow appear in the records of 1855, as does Benjamin Costly. During the Civil War, no less than ten Blacks from Pekin served in various elements of the Union Army, including Private Thomas Shipman of Company D, 29th United States (Colored) Infantry, who was killed in combat near Hatcher’s Run, Virginia, on March 31, 1865.

“The post-war amendments to the United States Constitution and the new 1870 Constitution of Illinois brought about new openness for the Blacks. Schools and voting were opened to them. The legendary former Sheriff, hero of the Mexican-American War, William A. Tinney (says Chapman in 1879), ‘distinguished himself in his old days by being the first white man in Pekin to lead a Negro to the polls to vote . . .’ Unfortunately, we cannot determine which black resident it was who voted.

“Dozens of others, with both good and poor reputations, lived in Pekin through the years. Anderson Blue, James Lane, and other names appear. ‘James Arnold Washington Lincoln Jackson Gibson’ was the mascot of Company G, 5th Illinois Infantry of the Spanish-American War; and a veteran of that conflict, Howard (sic – Lloyd) Oliver, returned to Pekin in 1902 to marry Miss Cora Hoy (sic – Foy).

“Then there was ‘Rastus’ Gaines. He is fondly remembered by older citizens as the cheerful, businesslike porter of the old Tazewell Hotel. As the Reverend Erastus Gaines, he made his mark as an evangelist in both Pekin and Peoria. Says one who knew him at the turn of this century, ‘He was uneducated, but within his abilities, he could give a good talk and could get his message across  . . . . While we kidded him a lot . . . we liked him a great deal.’

“Sam Day, Al Oliver, the families of McElroy, Houston, and Good are names which can yet be recalled by the elder citizens of present-day Pekin. Walter Lee was for many years the masseur at the Pekin Hospital, and for a time had a private practice in the Arcade Building. Many others have come and gone.

“Why is there now this tear in the ethnic fabric of Pekin? Pure economics. When the depression bore down on everyone in the thirties, many persons lost savings, jobs, housing – everything. Black or white, they had to ‘double up’ with friends or relatives to make ends meet. Even though the language barrier no longer exists, and the myth about Pekin’s attitudes have been proven false, Blacks simply have not returned to again add their contribution to the cultural richness of the city which was among the first to recognize them as partners in the progress of an expanding community.”

William Edward “Rastus” Gaines, porter at the Tazewell Hotel in downtown Pekin, born 3 April 1878 in Washington, Georgia, son of Jesse and Mary (Tate) Gaines, died after 25 April 1942 probably in Baltimore, Maryland. PHOTO COURTESY TAZEWELL COUNTY GENEALOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Any discussion of the African-American experience in Pekin should include not only the stories of Pekin’s black families during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but will have to address Pekin’s reputation as a “Sundown Town,” a community unwelcoming to or hostile to blacks.  As we’ve mentioned here before, Pekin’s reputation predates the arrival of the Klan, but the Klan’s strong presence here certainly terrified Pekin’s small population of blacks. U.S. Census statistics show only four blacks in Pekin in 1900 (there were more than that), in 1910 only eight, in 1920 (just before the KKK arrived) a total of 31, in 1930 only one – and in 1940 not a single black person was left in Pekin, something that would not change until the 1990s.

Unlike other Midwestern communities, Pekin never had any city ordinances dictating that blacks had to be out of town by sundown – “unofficial” social pressure and intimidation were certainly present, though. The widespread story of a “sundown” sign on the Pekin bridge remains one of the unresolved mysteries of Pekin’s past, because no direct evidence has ever been produced that Pekin really had such a sign posted on its bridge, the way other “lily-white” Illinois communities posted anti-black signs at their town or city limits. If there ever was such a sign, it was not authorized by Pekin’s city government, and it was probably long gone by the 1960s if not earlier.

The fact that the story has long been so widespread suggests that it is based on truth, and yet the absence of any photographic evidence also suggests that the story could be only a legend. In my own research, the closest I’ve ever come to evidence for the bridge sign is a 14 Oct. 2010 Pekin Daily Times Letter to the Editor written by Randy Hilst, who said he had found the sign (or “a” sign) in an old house in Pekin that had KKK robes and relics. Hilst wrote, “I had the sign verified as to being old by a lady who lived in Peoria, who used to do appraisals at the Illinois Antique Center in Peoria. She said it was the first she had seen but always believed they did exist. We also talked about the possibility that they may have had to be replaced from time to time, so who knows how many were actually made and how many ‘knock-offs’ were made by local racists at the time.”

Until solid documentation is found that might shed light on the old story of the bridge sign, it can only remain a haunting echo of a past that was vastly different from contemporary Pekin’s increasingly racially diverse community.

Next week, “From the History Room” will again feature an article in keeping with Black History Month, telling the story of the three Pekin-area ministers who joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to march for African-American civil rights in Alabama in 1965.

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Entertaining the Pekinese

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

The metropolitan areas and larger cities of the U.S. naturally serve as the nation’s cultural centers. These are the kinds of places that can support a philharmonic orchestra, and that are always included on the itineraries of musical groups when they plan concert tours.

Smaller cities, however, or towns lacking a suitable venue for a concert, or that are unlikely to draw a sufficient audience to make a concert stop worthwhile, tend to get overlooked. Pekin is one of those cities. Pekin has never had its own philharmonic, but we do boast the Pekin Park Concert Band (successor of the Pekin Municipal Band) that presents summer concerts in Mineral Springs Park on Sundays. Further in the past, Pekinites were also entertained by Gehrig’s Band, and Pekin’s local theaters also regularly staged plays and hosted vaudeville acts.

For about seven decades, popular bands and singers and classical performers were also brought here by the Pekin Concert Association, which until it disbanded recently would book and finance an annual concert series. The decision to disband, according to former PCA member George Beres, was regrettably made due not only to declining membership but to difficulty in securing a suitable venue. In the past concerts would be presented in the Pekin Community High School theater – originally in the former West Campus, later in East Campus’ F. M. Peterson Theater. Within the past decade, though, reserving the PCHS theater became impractical, since acts had to be secured well in advance. In its final seasons the PCA sometimes hosted concerts at a local church.

PCA records kindly supplied to the Pekin Public Library by George Beres listed all of the musical acts in every concert series from the 1948-49 series until the 2006-07 series. The acts’ names, however, are usually abbreviated and not always easy to interpret for those not familiar with popular serious musicians of the past.

Thus, the records show that the first Pekin Concert Association concert series in 1948-49 featured “Templeton, Lloyd, Dilling, Col. Operatic Trio.” A notation on the record indicates that “Dilling” was Mildred Dilling (1894-1982), a renowned harpist. “Templeton” is probably the pianist and composer Alec Templeton (1909-1963), while “Lloyd” is possibly the British composer George Lloyd (1913-1998). “Col. Operatic Trio” refers to the Columbia Operatic Trio, whose members varied over the years.

Subsequent PCA concert series brought such musical performers to Pekin as the Tucson Arizona Boys Choir, the Angelaires, David Bar-Ilan, The DeCormier Folk Singers, Guy Lombardo, The New Christy Minstrels, Serendipity Singers, The Four Freshmen, Chanticleer, The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, The Brothers Four, and The Cornet Chop Suey Jazz Band. Several of the artists and groups made more than one return visit to Pekin courtesy of the Pekin Concert Association.

One of those musical groups that came to Pekin more than once during the PCA’s early concert series was the de Paur Infantry Chorus, an all-male, all-African-American choral group that was organized and conducted by Leonard E. de Paur (1914-1998), a gifted conductor and composer who founded the Lincoln Center Out of Doors programs in New York City. While serving in the U.S. Army infantry in World War II, de Paur was assigned to an all-male chorus – that experience led to de Paur’s founding the de Paur Infantry Chorus after the war. The chorus’ members initially were 35 men from the Army’s 372nd Glee Club, though later on men from other branches of the Armed Services and even civilians were included. The chorus performed a repertory of art songs, military songs, Caribbean folk music and traditional spirituals. Signing with Columbia Records in 1946, the chorus soon began a 10-year reign as Columbia’s top-performing group. Following that success, de Paur decided to discontinue the chorus in 1957, producing the de Paur Opera Gala in its place. In the early 1960s, however, de Paur formed the de Paur Chorus, which toured worldwide until it was disbanded in 1968.

Leonard de Paur, founder and conductor of the de Paur Infantry Chorus, directed his choruses in concert in Pekin three times, courtesy of the Pekin Concert Association.

Leonard de Paur brought his Infantry Chorus to Pekin twice – first during the PCA’s 1950-51 concert series, and again during the 1952-53 concert series. The de Paur Chorus also performed in Pekin during the PCA’s 1963-64 concert series. George Beres attended their concerts here and says they put on an extremely good show.

A number of fascinating and enlightening anecdotes of the de Paur Infantry Chorus’ visits to Pekin in 1950 and 1952-3 may be gleaned from an article from the Winter 1954 issue of “Etc.: A Review of General Semantics” (Vol. XI, No. 2, pages 144-147), a copy of which may be found in the archives of the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room. The article, entitled “Educating the Pekinese” and written by Clotye Murdock, associate editor of Ebony magazine, sheds a revealing and edifying light on the racial attitudes of the residents of the then-all-white city of Pekin. Included in Murdock’s article are the following excerpts from a letter by Leonard de Paur in which he sketched the chorus’ visits:

“We have a date coming up which suggests an interesting angle in the area of race relations. It involves a town highlighted by Life magazine about a year ago as a center of gambling and assorted other shocking vices. The town is Pekin, Illinois (near Peoria), where there is no discernible Negro population. Pekin has no decent hotel, and it is around this lack that the story revolves. We first performed in Pekin during 1950. In the routine booking of hotel accommodations it became evident that we would have to stay in Peoria, where we were housed at the Marquette Hotel when we earlier gave a concert for Bradley University. As a matter of general information, we advised the concert committee in Pekin of our plan to hotel in Peoria . . .

“Shortly thereafter, we received an invitation from the committee to stay in Pekin as house guests of some of the town’s leading citizens. We wanted to decline at first, because the routine of the road is designed for hotel living. We avoid house-guesting, because of the headaches involved in dispersal and collection, so we tried a gentle demurrer. They persisted, and assured me that all we need to do would be to arrive in the town. They would take over from that point. And they did just that.

“Our bus pulled up to the site of the concert to find a fleet of cabs ready to taxi us to our respective homes. A leading lawyer [Note: this was Grace United Methodist Church member Bernard F. Hoffman, 1912-1972, a founding member of the Pekin Concert Association who for most of his life was one of Pekin’s most active community leaders] had organized things and hovered by making sure things moved on schedule. Supper found us the guests of the Methodist Men’s Club. The post-concert reception was held at the YWCA. Next morning, it developed we were truly ‘guests’ – our money was absolutely no good, breakfast, lunch, and the like for 34 men notwithstanding. Along the streets we were lionized to the hilt, so much so that my curiosity boiled over. This was too good, too organized. I sought the answers.

“They were simple and enlightening. Peoria has had, as you know, its racial difficulties (schools, restaurants, etc.), and Pekin had them in even more virulent fashion. There was an organized effort made, some years ago, to keep Negroes out of Pekin, and the one family which dared move to the town finally gave up and fled. There have been no Negro residents since that time.

“But God bless ’em, there are people of conscience in Pekin, and this racial ‘void’ had obviously troubled them. Our appearance proved to be an opportunity for them to use our visit as a ‘demonstration of democracy’ project. I also suspect they wanted to see some colored folk close-up.

“The result was that this year when we were asked to return to Pekin, housing needs were oversubscribed. And the people involved are the ‘leadership’ element in the town – the thinking and acting and policy-forming group. As a symptom of what may well be an ever-widening turn of mind, I find it heartening . . . .”

The de Paur Infantry Chorus’ experiences of Pekin serve to illustrate what popular singer Billy Joel once said about some of the most beneficial qualities of music: “I think music in itself is healing. It’s an explosive expression of humanity. It’s something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we’re from, everyone loves music.”

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Pekin wasn’t always a welcoming place

Here’s a chance to read one of our old Local History Room columns, first published in June 2013 before the launch of this blog . . .

Pekin wasn’t always a welcoming place

By Jared Olar
Library assistant

Included in the Pekin Public Library’s Local History Room collection is an extensive file on a dark period in Pekin’s history: the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. The KKK attained prominence and prestige throughout the Midwest in the early 1920s, and was established in Pekin by a vaudevillian and respected community leader named Oscar Walter Friederich, owner of the Capitol Theater. Friederich was a Grand Titan in the Klan, supervising more than 40 Illinois counties, and Pekin was his regional headquarters.

In September 1923, Friederich and two other Klansmen, Silas Strickfaden and E. A. Messmer, partnered to buy the Pekin Daily Times, which thus became an organ of the KKK’s racist and nativist propaganda. Consequently, much of the Local History Room’s file on the KKK consists of copies of Pekin Daily Times articles and advertisements from the first half of the 1920s.

Almost as rapid as its rise was the Klan’s fall in the mid-1920s, due not only to organized social opposition to the KKK across the country but also to several public scandals that made national headlines. The Klan’s local fortunes in Pekin followed its national fortunes, and when the Klan fell into disrepute, the Pekin Daily Times nearly went out of business and Friederich had to sell the paper in June 1925.

An image from a darker time, this illustration appeared in a Pekin Daily Times advertisement for a major Ku Klux Klan gathering in Pekin — the “Klantauqua” — that took place in late August 1924.

A few other articles in the Local History Room’s KKK file touch on the related subject of Pekin’s reputation as a racist community unwelcoming to non-whites. Given Pekin’s past and reputation, sociologist James Loewen included Pekin in his 2005 study, “Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism,” which explores the phenomenon of U.S. communities that made it known to blacks that they had better be out of town by nightfall.

Obviously, the history of the KKK in Pekin had a lot to do with that reputation, but a closer look at Pekin’s history reveals that the reputation predates the Klan’s arrival in Pekin. For example, on July 24, 1933, the Pekin Daily Times printed a curious story at the bottom left corner of the front page, with the headline, “Now it is Explained: Why Negroes Don’t Light in Pekin; Once Upon A Time There Were Balls and Chains.”

This story followed a news report of the preceding week, published at the bottom right corner of the Daily Times’ front page on July 21, 1933, about a black man from Chicago Heights named James Davis, one of two blacks who had been arrested in Pekin as stowaways atop a C. & I. M. box car. The news report, which utilizes the racially derogatory language common in those days (which we will not quote here), says Davis’ companion went quietly, but Davis allegedly resisted arrest and attempted to escape.

Davis was brought to court the next day, and the judge told him, “The court after carefully considering the case fixes your fine at $25 and costs, but fine and costs will be remitted if you get out of town. The court will give you one hour to get out of the best city in the state.” Davis replied that he thought he could make it out of Pekin in five minutes.

The follow-up story, which again uses racially derogatory language, shows an awareness of Pekin’s reputation, observing, “There have been other stories about Negroes getting out of town in a hurry – one about a man that left the city hall in such a rush that he even forgot to eat his dinner, other talks of Negro families moving in town one day and out the next – until it seems that there must be that indefinable something about Pekin that keeps her population almost wholly white.

“Illinois population bulletins show that there are few other cities the size of Pekin that have no Negro population.

“William Gaines, one of our two black men, who is porter at the Tazewell hotel and who has been here for 30 years, explains the non-existence here of others of his race by the fact that Peoria is so near, and that Negroes in general prefer to live in larger cities.”

The story then relates a personal recollection of Emil Schilling, “one of Pekin’s lifetime residents who remembers everything that has gone on here for the past 50 or 60 years.” Schilling attributed the absence of blacks in Pekin to an incident that older men of the town had told him when he was a boy.

“He was told that there had been a gang of levee Negroes working as the crew on a river boat back in the days before the Civil war, 30 or 40 of them, that had gotten too much whisky at 20c a gallon and had begun to carouse.” According to this tale, the blacks were arrested and clapped in iron, and were sentenced to six weeks of labor on the city streets dragging a ball and chain.

Schilling said word of that incident spread up and down the Illinois River. On a trip to St. Louis during the 1880s, Schilling encountered a group of black dockworkers, and he asked one of them if he would like to live in Pekin. According to Schilling, the man replied, “No, suh, boss, no suh, that town ain’t no place for a n—–.”

One of the most remarkable features of this 1933 Pekin Daily Times story is the complete absence of any reference to the Ku Klux Klan, even though the KKK’s popularity in Pekin during the first half of the 1920s is obviously relevant to this question. This is a glaring omission that was probably intentional on the writer’s part.

While it’s unclear how much weight should be placed on Schilling’s recollections, his tale would suggest that Pekin’s reputation as a community unwelcoming to blacks predates the Civil War. That would not be surprising, given the fact that until the Civil War Pekin was a Democratic, pro-slavery political stronghold. One of the important factors in shifting Pekin to an anti-slavery Republican stronghold was the influx of German immigrants around the mid-1800s.

However, while the German influence was crucial in the shift of Pekin’s politics, it also helped make Pekin less desirable as a place to live for non-German-speakers, both white and black. As a result, “The small black population and many of the older white families moved to Peoria,” according to an April 13, 1989 Peoria Journal Star column by retired Peoria Journal Star editor Charles Dancey of Pekin.

The practical results of these cultural and demographic trends can be tracked in the U.S. Census: in 1900, only four blacks lived in Pekin, in 1910 only eight, in 1920 (just before the KKK arrived) a total of 31, in 1930 only one – and in 1940 not a single black person was left in Pekin.

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