The Lynching of George "Joe Coe" Smith in 1891

At this spot on October 10, 1891, George "Joe Coe" Smith was lynched. This violence enacted against George Smith was one of the first racially motivated lynchings recorded in the Omaha area, and yet, its memory and impact are often forgotten. Smith was arrested amid allegations of the raping of a young, white girl - allegations that were later refuted. Instead of allowing justice to take its due course, a white mob dragged Smith from the Douglas County Jail, then tortured and lynched him from the streetcar cables that ran on 17th and Harney Street outside of the courthouse in downtown Omaha, Nebraska. Though the cables have since been taken down, the area in front of the courthouse where the lynching took place is open to the public, albeit without an historical marker of remembrance in sight. It's hard to believe that this monument-less landscape was once the site of a riotous murder.

George Smith was lynched on October 10, 1891 at 17th and Harney Street outside the Douglas County Courthouse in Omaha, Nebraska by a large white mob. He left in his wake a wife and one child. Smith was initially arrested after being accused of assaulting a young girl named Dot Gannley (Dollie Gunn) on September 7, 1891, but the allegations against him were later withdrawn. Within a month of the initial accusation, on October 8th, Smith was again accused of raping another young girl named Lizzie Yeates. It is important to note that Smith had an alibi and later, Yeates confessed that she had not been raped at all, much less by Smith.

The media’s influence on the public was a major factor in the violence that erupted in 1891. Smith's alias was "Joe Coe," according to The Omaha Bee, and news sources used the two names interchangeably when referring to him. It was only when The Omaha Bee falsely reported that Yeates had died as a result of the alleged attack that a mob of up to ten thousand vigilantes gathered outside of the county jail. The mob had decided that Smith was guilty and took it upon themselves to enact justice. Despite Governor James Boyd, Judge George Doane, the Omaha Fire Department, and other objections, the crowd of white supremacists did not retreat or stop at anything until Smith was dead, dragging him through the streets of Omaha by a rope and, eventually, hanging him from the streetcar cables.

George Smith was never proven guilty, and his right to a fair trial was taken from him from people that never faced any sort of retribution for their crimes. Despite the fact that some of the members of the mob who murdered George Smith were charged, none of them were convicted. A jury determined two weeks after the lynching that George Smith’s cause of death was "fright," a vague and utterly false claim that provided a sort of justification for the crimes committed against him. This conclusion dismissed the mob's infliction of injury upon Smith, instead favoring a version of the story that made it seem like his death was of his own volition. This decision allowed the seven white men that were arrested, including the Omaha police captain, to remain free, never to be prosecuted.

An innocent man was hung by a white mob on October 10, 1891. And still, the city remains without a monument or a plaque to commemorate his unjust death. However, Smith's lynching was not an isolated instance in Omaha's history of violence and lynching, for the infamous Omaha Race Riot of 1919 and the murder of Will Brown happened at the same site just twenty-eight years later. Will Brown’s murder in 1919 was echoic of George Smith’s in the way that they were both accused of raping a young, white woman, they paid the price with their lives at the hands of a white mob, and their lynchings happened within a block radius. And yet, the memory of Brown’s lynching is stained upon the city of Omaha, whereas Smith’s is all but forgotten. To read more about Will Brown's lynching and the Omaha Race Riot of 1919, visit https://theclio.com/entry/2049.

George "Joe Coe" Smith died at this spot in Omaha, NE on October 10, 1891. For more information about America's history of lynching and to read more about victims like Smith, visit https://eji.org/reports/lynching-in-america/.

Dokosi, Michael Eli. “The Harrowing Lynching Tale of George Smith in 1891 - without Trial.” 2020. Face2Face Africa. February 9, 2020. https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-harrowing-lynching-tale-of-george-smith-in-1891-without-trial.

Equal Justice Initiative. "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror." Third Edition. 2017. www.eji.org.

Fletcher, Adam F. C. 2011. “The Lynching of George Smith.” North Omaha History. January 29, 2011. https://northomahahistory.com/2011/01/29/a-history-of-omahas-first-recorded-lynching/.

Menard, Orville D. “Lest We Forget: The Lynching of Will Brown, Omaha’s 1919 Race Riot.” Nebraska History, vol. 91, no. 3/4, Fall/Winter 2010, pp. 152-165. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.www2.lib.ku.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=55544138&site=ehost-live.

Potter, James E. “‘Wearing the Hempen Neck-Tie’: Lynching in Nebraska, 1858-1919.” Nebraska History, vol. 93, no. 3, Fall 2012, pp. 138–153. EBSCOhost, search-ebscohost-com.www2.lib.ku.edu/login.aspxdirect=true&db=a9h&AN=79572103&site=ehost-live.  

“George Smith (Unknown-1891) - Find a Grave...” n.d. Www.findagrave.com. Accessed October 27, 2021. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7188523/george-smith.