city's saloons. Any offense, committed by black people, was deemed "the fault" of black corruption, black saloons, black suffrage, and black upward mobility. In Springfield, much like across the country, "problems" arose when black people were not "kept in their place." It was noted that "the Negro of Springfield is not the Negro of the South," in that a black man in Springfield had an "aggressive attitude," which he would use to readily argue that he was "just as good as a white man." Corrupt white politicians were said to have contributed to this "arrogant attitude" by giving them city jobs, despite "the majority being lazy, dishonest, vicious, worthless, and genuinely bad." It was reportedly this "attitude" that created a strong dislike against them in among Springfield's white citizens, on par with the dislike of black people in the South. "Wet" city Much of Springfield's atmosphere, at the time, was a result of its relationship with prohibition. Prohibition represented a conflict between urban and rural values emerging in the United States. With the rising population of immigrants in urban centers, more immigrants began frequenting saloons. This spawned the notion that saloons were breeding grounds for moral and political corruption, due to the perception that immigrants traded their votes for favors i.e. jobs, housing, food, etc. In a backlash to the changing demographics, many prohibitionists embraced nativism, fostering further resentment toward immigrants who, typically due to cultural differences about drinking, were against prohibition. After a highly contentious debate on prohibition, in 1907, the Illinois General Assembly approved the "local option" law, which allowed local residents to decide whether their towns would be "wet" (allowing liquor sales within the boundaries of individual counties and townships), or to otherwise be "dry." In April 1908, after a Sangamon County vote, only two of the county's 27 townships opted to be "wet" – New Berlin, which was the home of four saloons, and Capital Township, which included Springfield and accounted for over 80 percent of the county's nearly 250 saloons. At the time of the vote, approximately $2.2 million (over $55 million in 2018) was spent on alcohol in Springfield's more than 200 saloons, six of which were black-owned, generating tax revenue that accounted for one-third of the city's $300,000 (about $7.5 million in 2018) annual budget. While there were nearly 18,000 [all male] ballots cast in that county vote, the overall sentiment of the