[DarkRainbow]

The Omaha Race Riot occurred in Omaha, Nebraska, on September 28–29, 1919. The race riot resulted in the brutal lynching of Will Brown, a black worker; the death of two white men; the attempted hanging of the mayor Edward Parsons Smith; and a public rampage by thousands of whites who set fire to the Douglas County Courthouse in downtown Omaha.

It followed more than 20 race riots that occurred in major industrial cities of the United States during the Red Summer of 1919.

At about 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, September 28, 1919, a large group of white youths gathered near the Bancroft School in South Omaha and began a march to the Douglas County Courthouse, where a Mr. Brown was being held. The march was intercepted by John T. Dunn, chief of the Omaha Detective Bureau, and his subordinates. Dunn attempted to disperse the crowd, but they ignored his warning and marched on.

Thirty police officers were guarding the court house when the marchers arrived. By 4:00 p.m., the crowd had grown much larger. Members of the crowd bantered with the officers until the police were convinced that the crowd posed no serious threat. A report to that effect was made to the central police station, and the captain in charge sent fifty reserve officers home for the day.
After a short while, three slips of paper were thrown from the fourth floor on the west side of the court building.

On one piece was scrawled: "The judge says he will give up ***** Brown. He is in dungeon. There are 100 white prisoners on the roof. Save them."
Another note read: "Come to the fourth floor of the building and we will hand the ***** over to you."
The mob in the street shrieked its delight at the last message. Boys and young men placed firemen's ladders against the building. They mounted to the second story. One man had a heavy coil of new rope on his back. Another had a shotgun.

Two or three minutes after the unidentified athletes had climbed to the fourth floor, a mighty shout and a fusillade of shots were heard from the south side of the building.

Will Brown had been captured. A few minutes more and his lifeless body was hanging from a telephone post at Eighteenth and Harney Streets. Hundreds of revolvers and shotguns were fired at the corpse as it dangled in mid-air. Then, the rope was cut. Brown's body was tied to the rear end of an automobile. It was dragged through the streets to Seventeenth and Dodge Streets, four blocks away. The oil from red lanterns used as danger signals for street repairs was poured on the corpse. It was burned. Members of the mob hauled the charred remains through the business district for several hours.

Sheriff Clark said that ***** prisoners hurled Brown into the hands of the mob as its leaders approached the stairway leading to the county jail. Newspapers have quoted alleged leaders of the mob as saying that Brown was shoved at them through a blinding smoke by persons whom they could not see.

[Rusty666]

[knottlawhite]

Memorial to the black man...wheres the ones to the 2 white men murdered

[IC10021]

Originally Posted by knottlawhite ↗

Memorial to the black man...wheres the ones to the 2 white men murdered

... you missed the point of the events and the post. Sorry.

[Kelseecat65]

I will never understand the depth of hatred displayed here. That poor man.
I wonder if anyone involved were arrested? The bastards look damn proud of themselves.

[Faline]

[Sterlig]

Just goes to show what the mob mentality and our natural instinct to follow fellow friends and family will do to us if we continue to blind ourselves to the concept of personal responsibility.

[Shakey]

Not an easy time in US history for racial relations.

[zombiehunter1231]

when my dad was in the marines back in the 70's after the war a man was telling him story about when black were GI's trying to revolt because of the civil rights movement happening back on the homefront i dont know the absolute details but u can look it up.. but long story short the man he was talking to was stationed somewhere where there was was a group of black GI's were lined up facing man behind an m2 machine the men were ready for a fight and werent cooperating with the commanding officers.the man my dad was talking to was there when a commanding officer had order the machine gunner to burst on the men, he said every single man that was standing in that line was just about cut half by 50. cal killed instantly.. after that the remaining men then started cooperating.. that man then told my dad that the same officer who ordered the shooting was later badly wounded in a firefight some time later..just thought was interesting story put here

[Megamel29]

http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/...0701_0134.html

From May through September 1919, over 25 race riots rocked cities from Texas to Illinois, Nebraska to Georgia. In Omaha, the trouble began on September 25, when a white woman, Agnes Loebeck, reported that she was assaulted by a black man.

The next morning, the Bee reached new lows reporting the event. The headline was: "Black Beast First Stick-up Couple."

"The most daring attack on a white woman ever perpetrated in Omaha occurred one block south of Bancroft street near Scenic Avenue in Gibson last night."
Coverage in the World-Herald was slightly less inflammatory:
"Pretty little Agnes Loebeck ... was assaulted ... by an unidentified ***** at twelve O'clock last night, while she was returning to her home in company with Millard [sic] Hoffman, a cripple."

That evening, the police took a suspect to the Loebeck home. Agnes and her boyfriend Milton Hoffman (they were later married) identified a black packinghouse worker named Will Brown as the assailant. Brown was 41 years old and suffered from acute rheumatism.
Before the police could leave the Loebeck house, a mob gathered outside and threatened to seize Brown. After an hour's confrontation, police reinforcements arrived and Brown was transferred to the Douglas County Courthouse. Several police officers were ordered to report at once to police headquarters in case of further trouble, and 46 policemen and a detective were kept on duty well into the night.

After the confrontation outside the Loebeck home, rumors began to fly that a mob would try to seize Brown again. On Sunday, September 28, a group of youths gathered in south Omaha and began a march to the Douglas County courthouse. Eventually, thousands of angry people gathered at the courthouse and by evening, the Omaha police and city officials inside the courthouse were virtual prisoners. The size of the crowd was estimated as between 5,000 and 15,000 people. By 8:00 p.m. the mob had begun firing on the courthouse with guns they looted from nearby stores. In that exchange of gunfire, one 16-year-old leader of the mob, and a 34-year-old businessman a block away were killed. By 8:30 the mob had set fire to the building and prevented fire fighters from extinguishing the flames. Inside, Will Brown moaned to Sheriff Mike Clark, "I am innocent, I never did it, my God I am innocent."

Mayor Smith had been at the scene for several hours. He came out of the courthouse and tried to reason with the mob. He asked them to forget the prisoner and allow the firemen to put out the flames. At that point, the mayor was knocked down by a blow to his head, and the next thing he knew, he was on Harney Street. One end of a rope was being flung over a lamp post. The other end tightened around his neck. That was the last thing he remembered until he woke up in a hospital where he remained for several days in serious condition with severe head injuries.

Mayor Smith had been rescued, but there are several versions of how the rescue happened. Some reports say police detectives were responsible for saving Smith's life. Others give the credit to a young man named Russell Norgaard. Whatever the true story, the mob lost interest in Smith and concentrated on getting Brown out of the courthouse.

Brown ended up in the hands of the crazed mob. He was beaten into unconsciousness. His clothes were torn off by the time he reached the building's doors. Then he was dragged to a nearby lamp pole on the south side of the courthouse at 18th and Harney around 11:00 p.m. The mob roared when they saw Brown, and a rope was placed around his neck. Brown was hoisted in the air, his body spinning. He was riddled with bullets. His body was then brought down, tied behind a car, and towed to the intersection of 17th and Dodge. There the body was burned with fuel taken from nearby red danger lamps and fire truck lanterns. Later, pieces of the rope used to lynch Brown were sold for 10 cents each. Finally, Brown's charred body was dragged through the city's downtown streets.

Nebraska-born actor Henry Fonda was 14 years old when the lynching happened. His father owned a printing plant across the street from the courthouse. He watched the riot from the second floor window of his father's shop.
"It was the most horrendous sight I'd ever seen . . . We locked the plant, went downstairs, and drove home in silence. My hands were wet and there were tears in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling at the end of a rope."
During Fonda's long career, at least two of his best movies — "Young Mister Lincoln" and "The Ox Bow Incident" — featured lynchings as major plot points.