Racism seen in interracial town's fall by historical archaelogist

URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A 19th-century railroad doomed a black-founded western Illinois town by diverting routes around it, an archaeologist who studied its history says.

New Philadelphia, Ill., was "the first town in the United States planned and legally registered by an African-American," writes University of Illinois Professor Chris Fennell in the journal Historical Archaeology....