Podbit · Up First from NPR
New Illinois isn't just a protest — it's a structured political operation. Organizers build support from the ground up: neighbors, township supervisors, sheriffs, then county boards, then state senators. The former Hancock County sheriff is in the group. They're using government buildings to plan a new government.
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At 15:12 · chapter starts 14:38
The scene is hard not to appreciate for its irony: New Illinois organizers meet monthly inside a courthouse that displays a portrait of Abraham Lincoln — the Great Emancipator, the president who held the Union together. Larry Mulch, the movement's vice chairman and a township supervisor himself, explains the organizing logic: you build a core group in each county, recruiting neighbors and local officials, then lobby county boards upward to state senators. The former Hancock County sheriff is in the group — which is how they got to use the courthouse in the first place. O'Neill notes that the movement draws deeply on a shared sense of cultural and historical distinctness. Downstate Illinois was settled largely by Kentucky and Tennessee farmers; Chicago grew from shipping and Great Lakes commerce into a global metropolis. As residents see it, the state was 'cleaved together' — two different peoples with two different pasts, two different ways of life. That sense of cultural distinctness, combined with political powerlessness, is exactly what history professor Dr. Kenneth Owen identifies as the two hallmarks of a serious secessionist movement.
Secession is baked into the American identity — it's the founding act. History professor Dr. Kenneth Owen says New Illinois has both hallmarks of a serious movement: a distinct cultural identity and clear political stakes. The structural obstacles are huge, but the movement isn't irrational.
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