There were rising racial tensions around the country at this time.
They were related to economic tensions,
to shifts in population due to the great migration and black soldiers are returning from
world war one.
One of the things that led to the rapid growth in the African-American population in Omaha
was the meatpacking industry.
The meatpackers' unions, like most of the other unions at that time,
did not allow African-American members.
The meatpacking plants had a deliberate
strategy in dealing with strikes.
They imported African-american workers so that they would
not only keep the plants running, but they also inflamed racial tensions and pretty much made
sure that the workers would not stand together.
A young woman named Agnes Lobeck reported that she
and her boyfriend had been attacked that a black man had held them at gunpoint, robbed them and
raped Agnes after dragging her into a ravine.
But the way they found Will Brown is that a neighbour
said that there is a "suspicious negro" living in the area.
Brown was only about 40 years old
but the doctor who examined him said that he suffered from severe rheumatism.
So Brown couldn't really move very well.
So the idea that he had overpowered a young white man
and raped a young woman is pretty far-fetched.
Tom Dennison was the local crime boss, he controlled Omaha's vice district,
liquor interests, gambling, prostitution, and he controlled a lot of votes.
He could turn out the right people to elect his preferred candidates.
After Will Brown was arrested, there's some evidence that Dennison was involved in inciting the mob.
When Brown was arrested, there had already been an attempt by a crowd to lynch him there on the spot.
But then two days later, another crowd starts gathering in front of the courthouse and as the day wore on more and
more people are arriving.
But for some reason the police were very slow to respond.
The crowd becomes more violent, they start throwing rocks,
they start breaking windows.
The courthouse staff are guarding
the doorways but people got into the building by breaking the windows.
In photos, you can actually
see people climbing up the side of the building and they started setting individual rooms on fire.
The fire department tried to break up the crowd but their hoses were cut and so they had no water
pressure to either turn the hoses on the crowd or to put out the fire.
The crowd was also armed.
There were people who were firing into the building.
We have photos of bullet holes in some of the windows.
So it was a combination of firearms, setting fires, throwing rocks, storming the building as well as
the fact that the building was completely surrounded.
So law enforcement had a choice.
Their choice was between firing into the crowd or stepping aside.
Eventually they chose to step aside.
For many years a man named Jim Dahlman had repeatedly been elected as mayor
with Dennison's support, but in 1918 a reform candidate named Ed Smith was elected mayor
by promising to clean up the town and he started cracking down on a lot of things.
At some point mayor Smith arrives on the scene.
He got out of the car, waded out into the crowd and
tried to calm people down, but the crowd turned on him.
They literally tried to hang the mayor.
They got a rope around his neck, they were in the process of raising him up when the police
arrived and rescued him and he was so badly injured that for some time afterward there was
doubt as to whether he would even survive.
The mob got up to the top floor and captured Will Brown.
They dragged him down the stairs and they beat him bloody by the time he was outside of the building.
There was a telephone pole across the street from the courthouse and they hanged him there.
They shot bullets into his body and then they cut the body down, dragged it through the streets
behind an automobile.
They burned his body on a bonfire at 17th and Dodge a few blocks away.
The crowd also destroyed police cars and fire equipment.
We have photographs showing the extent
of the destruction and the ferocity of the crowd.
The army had troops at Fort Omaha just
a few miles away but supposedly because it took time to go through the chain of command,
they didn't arrive until the whole thing was over.
The next day there were soldiers in the streets.
Wee have a photograph of a machine gun nest that's set up on a street corner.
This is peacetime America
and you're seeing this on a street in the United States.
By some estimates the crowd did a million
dollars worth of damage to the courthouse – that would be $15-16m today.
I don't know how many buildings in the surrounding neighbourhood had bullet holes in their windows.
I mean, just from the amount of gunfire, as well as all the things that were dragged through the streets.
Afterwards the county attorney announced that he intended to prosecute the rioters
and though there were some people who spent some time in jail awaiting trial,
despite all of the photographic evidence and despite the presence of many, many eyewitnesses,
no one was really willing to testify.
And so there were a few convictions, but they were of young people for relatively minor offences.
The fact that this crime went unpunished had a traumatic effect,
I think, on the city and the legacy of this event
that I think still carries on to this day.
But one thing that I think is hopeful
is that it isn't as violent as it was a hundred years ago.
We can make progress.
It is possible to learn from these crimes
and these deep-seated prejudices and to do better in the future.