Cairo, Illinois, has gained widespread media attention for being an abandoned ghost town at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers—and perhaps more startlingly, it is known as the city whose intense racial violence killed it. Featured in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, Cairo has a less-than-stellar history over the past century. Sitting at a population of 1,733 according to the 2020 census, with a whopping 23.5% poverty rate and only 13.6% of the population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, Cairo embodies the poster child of rural decay—its sights include abandoned buildings, rampant drug use, and crippling poverty. By all means, it should be a normal town; the port is still open, the public school district has stable enrollment, and there’s even an airport—but Cairo hides a secret, a violent past.
Cairo holds a racial history that cannot be separated from its current state. Racial tensions have been present in Cairo since the township was founded in the early 1800s, and were heightened during the Civil War as black Americans were placed in “Contraband Camps” as runaway or defected slaves, a Southern Illinois University publication claims. After the war, segregation in Cairo became particularly severe, with a long history of lynchings, the most notable case happening in 1909 to Will “Froggie” James with photo evidence. It is alleged that James had raped and murdered a younger white woman named Anna Pelly, though it is confirmed that no trial was ever conducted and the legitimacy of the crime remains disputed. The Cairo Bulletin published an article on November 12th, which details his brutal murder—he was hanged until the rope tore, at which point he was shot to death. This is just one account of racial violence, but the early 20th century was full of ongoing horror and declining prosperity.
Cairo’s economy relied heavily on steamboats and the port industry. Rail lines and river traffic brought in goods and people during the early 1900s, but being built on a floodplain rendered the area unsuitable for long term train industry—Cairo’s first economic failure. The Civil Rights movement challenged Cairo’s normalized segregation for at least a decade, opening up services for black denizens to mixed success. Many of the white Cairoites were radicalized by this action, closing businesses instead of serving non-whites—creating pressurized racial division. The death knell of Cairo came roughly a decade later in the late 1960’s, with the outbreak of an all-out racial conflict in 1967 to 1970, with aftershocks of violence lasting until the 1980’s. A New York Times article from 1971 reflects on this violent period, revealing that “gunfire [had] broken out on more than 140 separate occasions” over two years. Starting in 1967, the suspicious death of a black soldier under police custody was ruled a suicide and set off multiple days of rioting, creating warring factions—the racist police force, the oppressed black citizens, and the whites who also engaged in shootings. Boycotts of white business were so severe that by 1973, there were virtually no businesses left to riot against after bombings, shootings, and bankruptcies. After this point, the gradual decline closed many other services as the population dwindled from a peak of 15,000 to its numbers today.
White denizens fled the racial violence of the 1960s, but racist hiring policies from white business owners left the black population economically disenfranchised, relegating them to poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Now, the children and grandchildren of the black protestors of the Civil Rights era make up most of Cairo’s community—the white population held the majority of the wealth, and took opportunities with them when they left.
In a moment of ambition, Cairo recently became the beneficiary of the Rebuild Illinois project, receiving 3.4 million out of the project’s total 45 billion according to a Governor Pritzker press release to restore the port to its old glory—but the Illinois Answers Project showers skepticism on the hopeful endeavor, stating that Cairo is not ready for the undertaking. Funding is competitive, so Cairo may lose the funding to a competing port, further condemning an already job-starved economy.
Those who refuse to accept the reality of racism are doomed to succumb to it when the tides become too strong to fight. The boycott of the 1960’s and ‘70’s were ineffective in that white business owners simply closed shop and moved to nearby Cape Girardeau, Paducah, or other rural towns. In the aftermath of today, the atmosphere within Cairo is one of active distrust, inequality, and fear from both the black and white citizens; once a link for the underground railroad, it has become a town inhospitable to its own people.
The heart of Cairo still beats with emotion, poverty, and politics—it hums with the sound of blatant injustice and failure. There are grim signs of hope for Cairo’s nightmarish situation, but there is potential for the rest of the Midwest and the South. A revitalization and renewal of rural American life is possible, but only with careful investment and a progressive social movement—and the consequences of not following through are leaving millions to languish in the same kudzu-rot that has overtaken Cairo.
Kate Northern ‘28 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences She/they can be reached at k.e.northern@wustl.edu.