Let's Remember Some Civil Unrest! The Cincinnati Courthouse Riots

WYTS: Cincinnati Bengals. Original post here.

Some cities just seem like magnets for civil unrest. New York City, Baltimore, Chicago, they all have long histories and a lot of troubles. I was not expecting that for Cincinnati of all places, to be so riot-heavy (riotous?). In the 19th century this place had a major civil unrest about once a decade. They started early with a riot in 1792 when the town was only four years old and couldn't have had a population of more than 800 people. Skimming the history of Cincinnati is like skimming the history of Derry from IT, this place might actually be cursed. Is that why they never finished the subway? Let's remember the biggest civil unrest event, the 1884 Courthouse Riots.

Most riots in the Queen City of the West's history were about race, as usual, and not just white vs Black either. There was a major German immigrant population here going back to before the Civil War, which is why one neighborhood is called "Over-the-Rhine". A lot of German-Americans clashed with the rising Know-Nothings movement of nativist assholes. By the 1880s, none of these tensions had really been solved, made no better by a new tension, a crime problem.

There were 23 accused murderers sitting in jail on January 1st of 1884, and not much political will to do anything about moving them along. This is 19th century city politics, nakedly and shamelessly corrupt. The problems were sensationalized by The Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper, a former Pro-Confederacy Copperhead outfit. The Enquirer was a very pro-white, anti-Black paper in the 1880s, and basically remains so today. It's still a Republican rag. And since right-wing tabloids are the same across all eras, The Enquirer wrote hysterical articles about the city's lawlessness and crime, pushing for the Democrats in power to be thrown out.

All these racial and political problems came together very neatly with the December 24th, 1883 robbery and murder of William Kirk. Kirk was a stable owner, known for walking around with a lot of money in his pockets, and two of his employees knew his habits. The killing was done by a second-generation German man named William Berner and his accomplice Joe Palmer, of mixed race. The crime was far from perfect and both men were arrested quickly. On March 26th of the next year, the half-Black Palmer was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to hang. But the fully-white Berner, who had a better lawyer, got lucky with his jury, and was only guilty of manslaughter. So he would escape the noose, getting twenty years in prison. The public assumed immediately that Berner’s family had bribed the city machine to get him off. The whole town, even the judge, wanted Berner’s neck to snap.

The anger boiled over quickly across the city. In fact, this trial story tore Cincinnati apart in shocking speed. Imagine if the Casey Anthony verdict caused the Bastille to be torn down, that's how big this is going to get. The 26th was a Wednesday and peace would not be fully restored until Monday. Until then, we have a long weekend of action to cover.

On Thursday the 27th, several jurors were attacked by angry mobs. Some were beaten, some fled, one guy turned up to work only to find he was fired for his legal opinions. The rage was so intense that if you just had a similar name to a jury member, you were not safe. A guy named Phillips who had nothing to do with the trial had his house pelted by rotten eggs and "dead cats" (yes, that's what the source says, the mob threw dead cats). Berner, meanwhile, had been sent out to Columbus for his safety. Nobody knew yet that he had escaped captivity, not fleeing the police, but fleeing the mob. The convicted manslaughterer knew the state of Ohio could not protect him. He spent a few days hiding in a cabin in the woods playing cards, far away from the battles over him.

By Saturday, Cincinnati was in full revolt. 10,000 people were marching on the courthouse, which was now being desperately defended by every soldier the state of Ohio could find. The mob had grabbed weapons from the nearby armory and were storming militia barricades in full-on revolutionary battles. Eventually, the militia had to retreat. The courthouse set on fire, with the outer stone walls standing, but the interior gutted in the flames. Then the mob wanted to take the jail, some blocks away, which meant another fight. Joe Palmer, awaiting his execution, managed to survive for a little longer by fooling the crowd into thinking he was a white prisoner, not the "Black man" they wanted to lynch.

Eventually the state of Ohio did retake Cincinnati in the night, with the force of 425 men and gatling guns. This had been a massive gunfight. By the morning of Sunday, March 30th, the courthouse was a smoldering ruins and there was peace. Well, peace in that neighborhood, some rioters were still fighting across the city even after the main engagement had ended. But by the time federal troops arrived that afternoon, the city had tired itself out.

56 people were dead, hundreds wounded, a police captain who was killed in the fighting got himself a statue built in the new courthouse. The Courthouse Riots so shocked the city that in November, the Democratic Political Machine was replaced by a Republican one, which definitely fixed everything and there was never corruption ever again. That election, by the way, was also a near-riot. At least one sheriff deputy was killed in a gun fight with other cops.

As for the cause of all this chaos, William Berner peacefully gave himself up the weekend of the riots. He served his sentence without incident. Somehow he decided Ohio was not for him after being freed on parole, leaving the state forever.

Joe Palmer, ever the less fortunate member of the crime duo, was executed a year later, in July of 1885. Never doubt that the justice system works.