PANA memorial

The dramatic history of Pana is summarized on our Pana webpage, illustrated in the Pana History Museum, told compellingly in several scholarly articles, as well as in the 2018 novel, Sundown Town, by Kevin Corley and Douglas E. King. The violence surrounding the coal miners’ strike in Pana in 1898-1899 between union men, the coal mine bosses, and the African American miners imported by the coal company to break the strike created the lengthiest coal miner crisis in Illinois history. Not only were there deaths (the exact number of African American participants is still unknown), the exceptional racial tension reverberated in Pana for many decades after with Pana becoming a classic sundown town.

On September 24, 2023, project co-director, Dr. Helaine Silverman, had the privilege of participating in the inauguration of a memorial to the black coal miners of Pana.

The memorial was the idea of a Pana resident and long-time journalist, Millie Meyerholz, who funded the memorial. Details about the events leading to the erection of the memorial are available in Professor Silverman’s article, “Remembering Pana’s African American Miners” (in Illinois Heritage, November-December 2023, pp 36-39).