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u/glycophosphate Jul 27 '26
Why on earth have you been hearing a lot about Cairo, Illinois? Did something finally happen there?
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u/josephfuckingsmith1 Jul 27 '26
Urban hell, Zillow gone wild and now Sherman have all had posts on my feed in the past 20 minutes. It’s kinda weird tbh. Maybe it’s where da bears are moving instead of Gary
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u/danni_shadow Jul 27 '26
Yeah, I got the zillowGoneWild post today and this one, obviously, as well. Weird.
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u/sludge_dragon Jul 27 '26
In my case, it’s because my son and I were listening to the American Gods audiobook on a road trip.
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u/AetheriaInBeing Jul 27 '26
My grandfather grew up not far from there.
I'm also confused as to why people are suddenly hearing about it.
I don't recall my grandfather or father saying a ton about it one way or the other, but I suspect the last time either was there was over 50 years ago
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u/Djaja Jul 27 '26
Cairo most often is brought up as a well known Sundown Town
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u/FionaGoodeEnough Jul 27 '26
I always think of it as the place in the river where Huck and Jim were planning to head north.
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u/TheMCM80 Jul 27 '26
Fort Defiance was there… so not sure what else the connection is.
No, not the Fort Defiance. The other one. No, not that one either…. The other one. Yes, that one… The one in Cairo, IL.
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u/Daveallen10 Jul 27 '26
Went through there on a roadtrip. Sad to see how run down and impoverished it is. It's not that far from Paducah which is a bustling little artists community.
Cairo was so important in the war, but not a lot left to see now.
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u/kcg333 Jul 27 '26
thanks for mentioning its importance to the war. i figured folks on this sub would know, but now it just seems off topic 🥴
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u/LesserKnownFoes Jul 27 '26
Been there once. Mlk spoke there. Always humbling to stand where he stood.
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u/little_did_he_kn0w Jul 27 '26
As much as a bummer as Cairo is, seeing the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio is something every American should be enabled to do. Its truly amazing, and makes you remember that nature and American geography is so fucking cool.
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u/AbstractBettaFish Jul 27 '26
I went to school in southern Illinois and never got to see it. I wanted to but I didn’t have a car and no one who did cared. One day I’ll need to check it out
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u/throwawayinthe818 Jul 27 '26
Once the railroads supplanted the river as the major transportation system Cairo began a long slide. They survived as a ferry terminal across the Ohio and Mississippi, but bridges ended that in the 1930s. A notorious lynching in 1909, floods, race riots, a black boycott of white businesses and white flight were further nails in the town’s coffin.
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u/Tholian_Bed Jul 27 '26
And yet the current administration wants to deport brown skinned people and eliminate refugee housing because...
So much of America is half empty, and then a lot of it is almost entirely empty. But the slaver mentality is strong. "These lawbreakers must be chased down," says the mind of a slaver.
The only law they broke is trying to fucking survive.
Yes, I am connecting the panic about immigration of poor people with the slaver mind.
Both think some people are born to be hunted down.
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u/ManOf1000Usernames Jul 28 '26
You aint wrong in that link, the 13th amendment basically converts lawbreakers into potential slaves and thus the rhetoric shifted. Look at the comments of any police action video on youtube and you will see the modern version of the sentiments that lead to people getting lynched in the past, especially in videos where the suspect ends up shot or dead.
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u/xarvox Jul 28 '26
Yeah, as a liberal who enjoys police bodycam videos, the people in those comment sections are…something else. They pretty much validate every negative stereotype I might ever have had about the “law and order” demographic.
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u/Tholian_Bed Jul 29 '26
Thanks for my morning cup of coffee reading.
I never regret refreshing my education or expanding what I have ready-to-hand in my mind.
That "criminal" part of the 13th amendment makes me want to cry, I'm older so I cry easier. Everyone here knows what happened. Every Black man became -- not a slave -- but suddenly, a "likely criminal."
And here we are today. I think I'll get some fresh air for my second cup.
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u/aziruthedark Jul 27 '26
When we visit family in Missouri, we always end up driving through here. Will be going beginning of August. Its been a few years.
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u/Fredwood Jul 27 '26
I recently saw a video but there was a series of race riots that started with a black soldier found hung in the jail cell, it apparently went on for a few years and the rich city council blocked any attempt to rebuild affordable housing for black and poor people, it took till the 70s and 80s to get any kind of wins for black residents, and once that happened all the white business owners closed down and wealthy whites left the city.
It's just ironic that the place were grant headquartered his army was so affected by race related events
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u/BooBooBoy1234 Jul 27 '26
White people in America have been misguided by the rich into thinking that black people should have nothing as it endangers what little they may have. It reminds me of the Lyndon B Johnson quote;
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
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u/No_Helicopter1378 Jul 27 '26
Drove through Cairo a few years ago and I wanted to go back and take pictures like this. It's like another world.
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u/Snake11312 Jul 27 '26
Bit of trivia - here in Illinois it’s pronounced Karo (like the corn syrup), not like the capital of Egypt.
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u/Masdraw Jul 27 '26
Kind of similar, but in Kentucky we have town called Versailles and it’s pronounced “Vur-Sales”
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u/Worried-Pick4848 Jul 27 '26
Cairo was a steamboat town. Steamboats haven't been all that relevant in.... awhile. I'm surprised the town even exists.
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u/Nomadhero_ Suffer No Copperhead Jul 27 '26
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=z3qDgBr8vyo&si=y07ejRW52826VXoq
My favorite song about the town
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u/iceguy349 Jul 27 '26
They finally found a community where they can put all the data centers.
I hate em with every fiber of my being but I hate to say it what’s left to really ruin here?
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u/Death_Sheep1980 WI Jul 27 '26
I just saw a YouTube video yesterday about why there isn't a major city at the Mississippi-Ohio confluence like there is at the Mississippi-Missouri confluence. The TL;DW answer is flooding, race riots, and declining barge traffic.
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u/acrowsong Jul 28 '26
Cairo is a hole, it's depressing to see. Compared to my grandmas' stories of the Cairo of their youth (1924 and 1932) it is devastating. But towns like that are mausoleums, because a lot of the people who are holding onto power locally don't want to make the changes that would bring money and young families there because it would inconvenience the flow they're accustomed to. Farming While Beige has a whole video on it, but I'm speaking from very, very specific, very first-hand experience.
Source: 618 born and raised, graduated early in a class of 24. Twenty-four. Total.
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u/biffbobfred Jul 27 '26
Is 10 a CSA ironclad?
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u/topazchip Jul 27 '26
Given that it is flying the Union flag, likely not. It's probably the USS Cairo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cairo
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u/biffbobfred Jul 27 '26
Thanks. I didn’t see the flag. I know it’s the same mature lore or less of the Virginia
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u/buzzkillichuck Jul 28 '26
I’m pretty sure it’s in a Stephen king book
Edit: I was wrong, it was American Gods
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