Evanston's Living History is the story of a people paying a big price for rights and liberties that many of us take for granted; a community whose indomitable spirit influenced the conscience of a nation.

Craig Dudnick’s presentation begins with a fifteen-minute overview of the story followed by the film screening, with discussion after.

Evanston's Living History begins with the birth of Anthony Crawford, born into slavery in 1860 in Abbeville, South Carolina. Through emancipation and the promise of Reconstruction, the Crawford family prospered, acquiring property in Abbeville that Anthony inherited and developed into 470 acres of prime cotton land.

A deadlocked Presidential election in 1876 led to the compromise which removed federal troops from the South and sounded the death knell for Reconstruction. With the dream of democracy crushed and the Jim Crow South left in its wake, Mr. Crawford was brutally lynched in Abbeville in 1916. His family was forced to flee, settling in Evanston, Illinois where they found that the North had their own version of Jim Crow.

The transformation took decades, but those once refugees became community leaders. Mr. Crawford’s descendants, alongside the families of Emmett Till, Michael Schwerener, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman worked to gain passage of United States Senate Resolution 39, which apologized for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.

On March 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a federal crime.

Evanston's Living History is available on Kanopy and on DVD.

This program is free and intended for teens and adults. No registration is required.

For additional information, please contact Samantha at samanthah@dkpl.org or at (815) 756-9568 ext. 1701.