List of Riots and Civil Unrest in Omaha, Nebraska

The following is a list of riots and civil unrest in Omaha, Nebraska. With its economic roots in cattle processing, meatpacking, railroads, manufacturing and jobbing, the history of Omaha has events typical of struggles in other cities over early 20th-century industrialization and labor problems. Racial tension was deeply based in economic and social competition as older immigrants had to contend with different ethnic groups from eastern and southern Europe and African Americans from the South. The latter were recruited for jobs in the expanding meatpacking plants as World War I shut off immigration from Europe. While numerous African Americans migrated to the city in its growing industrial phase, they were a distinct minority within the overall state population. Civil disorder in Omaha has related to the most critical events and tensions of an era, from showing support of homeless people in the 1890s; to anti-strikebreaker sentiment, focused on new Japanese residents at the turn of the 20th century; to anti-war events in the 1970s. The 1960s inner-city riots that destroyed parts of the Near North Side neighborhood were another manifestation of social and economic tension breaking out in violence.

Often the violence did little to resolve the problems at their roots: for instance, labor inequities were persistent because of major industries' opposition to unionizing and insistence on "open shop" policies into the 1940s and beyond. Just as workers were finally achieving some successes, industries underwent major restructuring, causing loss of tens of thousands of jobs and movement of industrial work away from Omaha, stranding many in the working classes for some time. The challenges facing African Americans in Omaha with regard to economic inequity and social immobility also persist but the form has varied with social and economic changes. The racial tension persists in part because of problems with crime arising from dysfunctions of poverty, entwined issues of class and race, and the relative geographic and social isolation of some of the minority communities.