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To: dfwgator

“When he was 14, he [Henry Fonda] and his father witnessed the brutal lynching of Will Brown from a nearby building during the Omaha race riot of 1919. This enraged the young Fonda and he kept a keen awareness of prejudice for the rest of his life. Remarking on the incident in a 1975 BBC interview, he said: ‘It was the most horrendous sight I’d ever seen. My hands were wet, there were tears in my eyes. All I could think of was that young black man dangling at the end of a rope.’”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Fonda


35 posted on 05/29/2023 8:30:38 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin

“The number of African-Americans in Omaha doubled during the decade 1910–1920, as they were recruited to work in the meatpacking industry. In 1910, Omaha had the third largest black population among the new western cities that had become destinations following Reconstruction and during the Great Migration that started in the 1910s. By 1920, the black population more than doubled to over 10,000, second only to Los Angeles with nearly 16,000. It was ahead of San Francisco, Oakland, Topeka, and Denver.

“The major meatpacking plants hired blacks as strikebreakers in 1917. South Omaha’s working-class whites showed great hostility toward black strikebreakers. By this time, the ethnic Irish—the largest and earliest group of immigrants—had established their power base in the city. Several years earlier, following the death of an Irish policeman, ethnic Irish had led a mob in an attack on Greektown, driving the Greek community from Omaha.”

This has a picture of the body of Will Brown being burned after he was lynched:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_race_riot_of_1919


39 posted on 05/29/2023 8:35:52 AM PDT by Brian Griffin
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To: Brian Griffin
Based on the description of the riot and subsequent events it seems like Henry Fonda's story in unlikely to be true.

The lynching occurred in the middle of the night, and the victim's body was removed from the scene shortly after his death. In a night of terrible rioting, fires, and rampant gun fire it seems unlikely that anyone would be casually looking out the window in the middle of a night of chaos.

The same mob tried to lynch the mayor, but he was rescued while hanging. Source

64 posted on 05/29/2023 10:29:31 AM PDT by freeandfreezing
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