2019 marks 100 years since Red Summer and the lynching and killing of hundreds of blacks across the county. Willie Brown was lynched in my hometown, Omaha, on Sept 28, 1919.
A mob of nearly 10,000, a horde of angry and racist men stormed the courthouse, breaking windows, lighting fires, and shooting, to drag Willie Brown from his cell.
Grinning White Faces
Seeing pictures of the grinning white faces over the burning body (lynching wasn’t enough, nor dragging the body through the streets) makes one’s blood run cold. That so many could be driven into such mindless fury against a fellow human being is terrifying to consider.
Jonah [Farthest House] was a small black boy hiding in the dark, afraid for his life, listening to the din, and witnessing this through the cracks of a flimsy cellar door.