20th Century
With two world wars, several labor disputes and a lynching Omaha experienced a series of violent upheavals in the first half of the 20th century. The first recorded incidences of recorded racial discrimination occur, pitting whites against Japanese and Greek immigrants. Accordingly, the emerging civil rights movement in Omaha brought forth several incidences of civil unrest as well.
| Riots and civil unrest in Omaha from 1900 to 1929 chronological order | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Issue | Event | |||
| June 28, 1902 | Labor dispute | Protesters at the Union Pacific shops in Downtown Omaha go on strike with 1,800 workers affected across the Western United States. On September 14, 1902 a strikebreaker is killed by a group affiliated with the strikers. | |||
| May 14, 1903 | Labor dispute | 3,000 teamsters, restaurant workers, freight package handlers, and members of the building trades strike in Omaha. Governor John H. Mickey was called in to arbitrate after several days of protests. The protesters riot in Downtown Omaha after strikebreakers are called in to move wagons westward with supplies from Jobbers Canyon. | |||
| July 28, 1904 | Labor dispute | 5,000 South Omaha laborers walkout in solidarity with general laborers whose salaries were cut across the board on July 12. The Douglas County sheriff assumed full control of policing in South Omaha during packinghouse strikes. The meatpacking companies were found to have hired a gang from Colorado called "Reno's thugs," who were responsible for inciting riots in mining strikes in Colorado to create crises needing U.S. Army intervention. After assuring the company owners that the county sheriff would keep the peace, he and his officers ran the gang out of town. On August 24 stockyards lawyers asked the U.S. Army to protect trainloads of strikebreakers traveling into South Omaha in order to keep them safe. After the plants were forced to close for several weeks in August and September the strike was broken, with laborers losing 300 positions and wages. | |||
| April 17, 1905 | Racial tension | More than 800 students in South Omaha protested the presence of Japanese students at their school by refusing to attend and locking adults out of their school buildings, effectively taking over the buildings. The Japanese students were children of strikebreakers brought in by the stockyards the previous year. | |||
| March 15, 1906 | Lynching | A mob of 500 men attacked the second Douglas County Courthouse and jail in an attempt to lynch eight murderers. The crowd had threatened to lynch them for three previous nights and chose the evening of March 15 to attack using clubs, crowbars and ropes. The mob used a telegraph pole as a battering iron and barged inside the jail, only to meet policemen and sheriff's deputies who beat them back to the doorway. Soon calls for dynamite came from the crowd, and the Omaha Fire Department was called to assist. In zero degree weather they sprayed the mob, which retreated and did not return. | |||
| May 13, 1906 | Politics | A group of 1,000 citizens surround the Old City Hall in Downtown Omaha after a Republican-controlled Omaha City Council refused to allow a new Democratic-controlled City Council to assume their positions. The old city councilmen relinquished their control thereafter. | |||
| February 20, 1909 | Racial tension | A Greek immigrant was arrested for loitering after being accused of having sex with a white woman. During the arrest, a police officer was shot. The accused man was captured later. A mob of 3,000 men and boys gathered outside the South Omaha jail where he was being held. Police distracted the crowd while the prisoner was moved to the Omaha City Jail, but after discovering this, the mob attacked Greektown, a local ethnic enclave. They forced Greek residents to abandon the area, destroyed businesses, and completely demolished 30 buildings. | |||
| September 19- September 23, 1909 |
Labor dispute | Several day of rioting ensued as the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees attempted to unionize workers in Gurdon Wattles's Omaha Traction Company, which ran the streetcars. Wattles resisted and hired strikebreakers from across the country to cross picket lines. Threatening the unionists and refusing arbitration, Wattles provoked pro-union mobs. In turn, they destroyed streetcars, terrorized company officials, and attacked strikebreakers. Wattles broke the strike in October and workers agreed to his terms in order to return. Wattles later wrote a booklet about the events entitled A Crime Against Labor: A brief history of the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Strike, 1909. | |||
| July 4, 1910 | Racial tension | After a tremendous upset victory by African American boxer Jack Johnson in Reno, Nevada, mobs of whites roamed throughout Omaha rioting, as they did in cities across the U.S.. The mobs wounded several black men in the city, killing one. | |||
| September 28, 1919 | Lynching | Will Brown is lynched by a mob with 10,000 spectators in Downtown Omaha. The mob almost burned down the new Douglas County Courthouse in order to take Brown from his cell. This was reported to be the first instance of the U.S. Army becoming involved in quelling urban rioting in the 20th century. This riot shortly followed those of Red Summer, when post-war tensions led to race riots in numerous cities across the country, increasing fears and tensions in Omaha as well. | |||
| March 12, 1921 | Labor dispute | 6,000 strikers at the South Omaha meatpacking houses left their jobs, disrupting traffic and businesses throughout the community. In December additional police were called in to abate civil disorder caused by strikers. | |||
Read more about this topic: List Of Riots And Civil Unrest In Omaha, Nebraska