Sully Jaymes was the city’s first black lawyer, who provided free legal services to the black community during a time of profound racial tension. Dr. Thomas Burton was born in slavery and became Springfield’s first black doctor.
Hattie Mosely and Dorothy Bacon were perhaps the city’s most important civil right activists whose efforts helped to change the racial landscape of Springfield.
At the Heritage Center, there is an exhibit in the Noonan Gallery that looks back at Clark County’s rich African-American History and tells those stories and more.
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