I did a project in the Fall 2023 semester analyzing Potter’s Field in Omaha as a space, and while researching I had a few realizations about material culture and the lack thereof. Potter’s Field is a small plot of land where the indigent population of Omaha was buried from 1879-1959. The graves were unmarked purposefully so they would be forgotten over time. About half of the 3,912 people buried there were under the age of two at their time of death, and the rest were murder victims, sex workers, epidemic fatalities, and those who could not afford a private burial.
Potter’s Field has fallen into disrepair repeatedly since its decommission, but repeatedly, the community has come together to restore Potter’s Field. Former sheriff Richard Collins led the effort for a restoration project in 1984. Volunteers landscaped and cleaned the vandalized headstones. Using $22,000 in donations, they put in a new gate entrance and fencing. Historians used records from the neighboring Forest Lawn Cemetery and created engraved plates listing all names, ages at death, and burial years available. These plates are arranged in a circle around a sundial and benches between each, and quiet reflection and meditation are encouraged in the space by the entrance. With these additions, those buried there will be memorialized so visitors decades from now will be able to understand the significance of the site.
The most remarkable person buried in Potter’s Field is William Brown, a black meatpacking worker framed for the rape of a white woman and brutally lynched by a white mob of 10,000 to 20,000 at the Douglas County Courthouse during the “Red Summer” of 1919. The riot ended when martial law was declared in Omaha, and a boundary was drawn with intention of protecting black citizens. Will Brown was without a headstone until 2009. When I visited the site for the first time, I considered Brown’s story and what was left on his headstone by other visitors. There were bouquets of plastic flowers, a flag calling for racial justice, and a painted rock reading, “We are not a conquered people.” The black community in Omaha sees Will Brown’s death as the embodiment of American racism, and his gravesite is used as a tool for rallying together around the shared trauma and the fight for justice.
In 2019, one hundred years after the lynching of Will Brown, a group of local activists
and historians banded together to create the group “Make Potter’s Proper” with the goal of establishing a historical marker. After a year of collaboration with History Nebraska, the marker was placed and dedicated. With the historical marker, Potter’s Field is recognizable from the road as a place of cultural significance, and a public space to visit.
This project made me think about how people are remembered after death and about what we leave behind which outlasts us. I also considered communal values and how we show them through our material possessions. The people buried in Potter’s Field were considered burdens to society and worthless, so they were buried without anything to remember them. As our culture and values change as a society, we can go back to right some wrongs while bringing the community together. We can revive their memory by creating tangible reminders of their life, existence, and circumstances.
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