SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The site of the tragic and landmark 1908 Race Riot in Springfield has been given federal recognition that pushes it toward national historic monument status.

The (Springfield) State Journal-Register reports that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt signed a declaration adding the area near downtown to the National Park Service’s African American Civil Rights Network.

The riot site became the 30th on the network roster with Bernhardt’s action Friday at Abraham Lincoln’s preserved home, a national historic site.

Bernhardt said the network was created allow key spots such as the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail in Alabama and the Pullman National Monument in Chicago “tell the full and sometimes painful story of the struggle of civil rights.”

Foundations and artifacts from the riot zone were unearthed in 2014 during excavation for a high-speed rail project.

On Aug. 14, 1908, a white mob rioted upon learning that two black men jailed on suspicion of rape and attempted murder involving white women were spirited out of the county. The two-day melee claimed 16 lives and fueled the formation a year later of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Legislation to authorize national historic monument status awaits a vote in the U.S. House.

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