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<a href="https://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/will-brown-lynching-photo">
<img src="http://cdn2-b.examiner.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/hash/9a/c6/9ac61c89ff66c6d73fc5529a0eb23111.jpg" width=210 height=169 alt="[]">
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Will Brown's body burns in downtown Omaha after being lynched in 1919
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<i>Photo: Public Domain <br><br>
</i></font><h2><font size=4><b>Omaha’s ugly racial history includes a
1919 downtown lynching and mob riot</b></font></h2><font size=3>
<br><br>
<b>Omaha Two story: Sept. 28, 1919<br><br>
</b>The Omaha Two,
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police">
Ed Poindexter</a> and
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-mondo-we-langa-on-cointelpro-and-omaha-two-case">
Mondo we Langa</a> (formerly David Rice), were both born and raised in
Omaha, Nebraska. Both men had personal experiences with Omaha’s
racist climate and joined the Black Panthers to address problems they
witnessed.<br><br>
Fifty years before the Black Panthers formed in Omaha, a
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Race_Riot_of_1919">race
riot</a> in downtown Omaha had to be put down by the United States
Army. Before the Army was able to restore order, a white mob of
thousands sacked and burned the Douglas County Courthouse to seize a
prisoner,
<a href="http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0700/stories/0701_0134.html">
Will Brown</a>, accused of sexual assault.<br><br>
Will Brown, 40, was accused of rape by a 19 year-old woman from South
Omaha. The Omaha Bee newspaper published inflammatory articles
about the case and three days after the alleged crime a frenzied,
alcohol-fueled mob from South Omaha descended on the downtown and
demanded Brown be released from his cell for a street lynching.<br><br>
When officials refused to release Brown the mob began attacking the
courthouse to gain entry to the jail on the top floor. The mob
broke into the courthouse and stormed a police line in the
building. While the sheriff and his men were barricading the fourth
floor of the courthouse the mob raided a gas station and doused the lower
floors of the building with gasoline.<br><br>
After the fire started the mob armed itself with guns stolen from looted
hardware stores and pawnshops. A thousand guns were reported stolen
that terrible night in Omaha.<br><br>
Omaha Mayor Ed Smith tried to stop the mob but he was hauled to a
streetlight on Harney Street near the courthouse where a noose was placed
around his neck and he was hoisted in the air. Swift intervention
by a state policeman who cut down Smith saved the mayor’s life.<br><br>
Sheriff Michael Clark led the 121 prisoners to the roof of the building
as the fire burned upward. Ladders where placed against the
courthouse as the mob sought access to the roof. Within minutes
shots rang out and the crowd seized Brown. The unfortunate mob
victim was immediately beaten and his clothing ripped from his
body. Brown may have already been dead by the time he was lynched
at the corner of 18th and Harney.<br><br>
After the crowd used the corpse for target practice the bloody body was
taken down and towed behind a car four blocks to 17th and Dodge Street
where oil was poured on Brown’s body and it was set on fire.<br><br>
Rioting continued until 3 a.m. when federal troops from Fort Omaha
arrived with machine guns. It took 1,600 soldiers to bring order to
the city.<br><br>
Despite photographs that allowed authorities to identify several hundred
of the lynch mob including the chief agitators, no one was ever
prosecuted for the crimes committed that fearful night.<br><br>
Actor Henry Fonda lived in Omaha at the time and his father ran a
business across from the courthouse. Fonda would later describe the
horror:<br><br>
“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<br>
in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling
at the end of a rope.” <br><br>
Within years of the riot Omaha would see the growth of the Ku Klux Klan
in the city. Omaha was a segregated city with the black population
largely confined to the Near North Side. <br><br>
The Near North Side was the home of both Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa
and also the neighborhood where patrolman
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/larry-minard-was-the-policeman-betrayed-by-j-edgar-hoover-to-frame-the-omaha-tw">
Larry Minard. Sr</a>. would lose his life on August 17, 1970 in an ambush
bombing.<br><br>
The Omaha Two are serving life sentences in the Nebraska State
Penitentiary for the murder of Minard but continue to deny any role in
the crime 40 years later. The two men say they were victims of
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/fbi-s-director-hoover-let-killer-of-omaha-policeman-get-away-with-murder-40-years-ago">
J. Edgar Hoover</a>’s illegal
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/human-rights-group-calls-for-reopening-of-cointelpro-cases">
COINTELPRO </a>operation that targeted the Black Panthers with a lethal
ferocity.<br><br>
Omaha never really recovered from the 1919 riot and its ugly legacy led
to a community now divided over the conviction of the Omaha Two.<br><br>
<b>To read all the Omaha Two story articles click</b>
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national"><b>HERE<br>
<br>
</a></b><i>Permission granted to reprint<br><br>
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