Joe Coe
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Joe Coe, also known as George Smith, was an African American laborer who was the victim of an 1891 lynching in Omaha, Nebraska. Surrounded by a crowd of ten thousand spectators at the Douglas County Courthouse, a group of twelve police officers stood by without intervening. Afterwards, the lynching was called "the most deplorable thing that has ever happened in the history of the country."[1]
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[edit] About
Coe was a married man with two children who lived on North 12th Street north of downtown Omaha. On October 7, 1891 Lizzie Yates, a five-year-old white child, accused Coe of assaulting her. A crowd of men was already gathered at the old Douglas County Courthouse that day to witness an unrelated hanging execution that was scheduled. In that group, a rumor circulated that the girl had died and punishment was only 20 years in jail. The crowd had seen Coe brought in earlier, and quickly decided he was guilty. Rumors quickly flew around Omaha that the girl was dead, the guilty party was in jail, and the worst punishment he would get was 20 years' incarceration.[2]
A mob formed in downtown Omaha early Saturday, October 10, and overwhelmed the police at the courthouse. Leaders drove Coe to the assumed victim's house in the Near North Side neighborhood to be identified by the parents. The mother immediately said she had seen Coe roaming around the house, although she would not swear that it was he.[3]
When the mob brought Coe back to the courthouse for his lynching, James E. Boyd, the governor of Nebraska, and the county sheriff both appealed to the crowd to disperse. By midnight a crowd of 10,000 people gathered at the courthouse.[4] The mob beat Coe viciously and dragged him through city streets. He was probably already dead when he was hung from a streetcar wire at 17th and Harney Streets.[5] Omaha mayor Richard C. Cushing quickly condemned the lynching as "the most deplorable thing that has ever happened in the history of the country."[6]
[edit] Aftermath
Seven men were arrested for the crime, including the chief of police and a major businessman; however, after a mob gathered outside of the jail and threatened to destroy it in order to "liberate" the suspects, each of them were freed, and nobody was ever brought to trial for the lynching.[7]
The following day Coe's body was arranged for public viewing at a mortuary in downtown Omaha. Six thousand spectators went to view it. Hucksters sold pieces of the lynching rope as souvenirs.[8] Ten days after the lynching the Douglas County Assistant Coroner rules that Smith died of "fright," rather than any of the wounds inflicted on him by the mob. Those wounds included sixteen wounds to his bound and three vertebrae broken in his spine. Despite this, the coroner ruled that, "the heart was so contracted and the blood was in such a condition that the doctor was satisfied that the man was literally scared to death."[9]
Many of the events of the Coe lynching are said to foreshadow the events of the Omaha Race Riot of 1919.[10]
[edit] See also
- Crime in Omaha
- Mass racial violence in the United States
- Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska
- Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska
[edit] References
- ^ Ginzburg, R. (1988) 100 Years of Lynchings. Black Classic Press. p 129.
- ^ Peattie, E.W. (2005) Impertinences: Selected Writings of Elia Peattie, a Journalist in the Gilded Age. University of Nebraska Press. p. 106.
- ^ Ginzburg, R. (1988) p 128.
- ^ Ginzburg, R. (1988) p 129.
- ^ Taylor, Q. (1998) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 206.
- ^ Ginzburg, R. (1988) p 129.
- ^ "Lynchers under arrest", The New York Times. October 11, 1891. Retrieved 5/25/08.
- ^ Bristow, D.L. (2002) A Dirty, Wicked Town. Caxton Press. p 253.
- ^ [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9806E1DC123AE533A25753C2A9669D94609ED7CF "Smith died of fright," The New York Times. October 20, 1891. Retrieved 4/20/08.
- ^ Ginzburg, R. (1988) 100 Years of Lynchings. Black Classic Press. p 129.
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