In April 2021, the federal government indicted a Southern Illinois University Carbondale professor under the “China Initiative,” alleging two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement in regards to a National Science Foundation grant application made on behalf of the university. If convicted, Mingqing Xiao could have faced up to…
When Kimberly France, a descendant of free African-American pioneers, first approached Toni Craig to help piece together her family’s history in a southern Illinois community called Africa, Craig wasn’t sure she was up for it. Craig already had spent years assembling and telling the stories of the community of Africa, which is located 120 miles…
It is one of the more unlikely places – a rural community struggling to move on from its “sundown town” reputation – that a small, curious audience gathered recently at the Anna Arts Center to listen to Harry Dougherty’s freedom story. It was told by local historian and educator, Darrel Dexter, who first learned of…