They armed themselves. They, too, appeared at the courthouse. A black police officer, Barney Cleaver, assured them that Rowland was safe. Go on home, he said. And for a moment, the crowd began to disperse.
Nobody knows who fired the first shot.
There was a scuffle. A burst of gunfire. Violence raged all night and through the next day. Angry whites descended on the Greenwood district. The first fire broke out an hour after midnight.