Civil rights movement in Omaha, Nebraska
Encyclopedia
The Civil rights movement
in Omaha, Nebraska
has roots that extend back until at least 1912. With a history of racial tension
that starts before the founding of the city
, Omaha has been the home of numerous overt efforts related to securing civil rights
for African Americans
since at least the 1920s.
That year stands out in the American civil rights movement
as Omaha became the location of the pivotal 1876 trial of Standing Bear v. Crook. In that trial a U.S. district court judge at Fort Omaha
set U.S. legal precedent by recognising the personhood of Native Americans, thereby granting American Indians the rights of citizens. With Standing Bear
, a Ponca
chief on trail, local journalist Thomas Tibbles
, Omaha Susette LaFlesche and General Crook himself testified on behalf of acknowledging Native American rights. For the first time, a U.S. court had ruled that an Indian was, officially, a person. Standing Bear won the case, securing the right of his tribe to leave their Indian Territory
reservation and return to their Nebraska homelands.
The first record of community violence against blacks in Omaha occurred in 1891, when an African American man called Joe Coe
was lynched by a vigilante mob for allegedly raping a white
girl. Another lynching occurred in 1919 when a white mob stormed the Douglas County Courthouse
to take Willy Brown, an African American accused of raping a young white woman. While these incidents terrified the population of African Americans in the community and effectively segregated them from the rest of the city, the civil rights movement in Omaha did not gain large-scale momentum until the 1920s.
The first organized effort for civil rights in Omaha was the creation of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) in 1912. At the national level, leadership and membership were integrated. The chapter has continued.
Other civil rights organizations soon formed in Omaha, part of the early 20th century spirit of reform that generated many progressive groups. In 1917 George Wells Parker
founded the Hamitic League of the World
in Omaha. In 1918 the League published his pamphlet Children of the Sun. The Hamitic League was committed to black nationalism
. Based in New York, Cyril Briggs became editor of their journal, The Crusader. It later became the journal of the African Blood Brotherhood
(ABB).
In the 1920s the Baptist minister Earl Little founded the Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's
Universal Negro Improvement Association. Little was the father of Malcolm, who later named himself Malcolm X
when he became a Black Muslim minister and spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was born in Omaha
in 1925, but his family moved away from the city while he was young.
There are reports of African Blood Brotherhood
-related action in Omaha, particularly around the time of the Willy Brown lynching. Witnessing the mob rule that overtook the city at the time of the lynching horrified many people. One of those who was radicalized was Harry Haywood
, who went on to become involved with the African Blood Brotherhood. Later Haywood became a leading African American member of the Communist Party of the United States. He was active from the 1920s to his death in 1981.
The Urban League of Nebraska had the first chapter founded in the American West of the national organization . Started in North Omaha in 1928, the Urban League of Nebraska was led by Whitney Young
, who quickly more than tripled the membership. The Urban League of Nebraska continues.
During this period the National Federation of Colored Women had five chapters in North Omaha with more than 750 members. They actively conducted a variety of social, political and charitable work throughout the city of Omaha. Starting in 1920, the Colored Commercial Club organized to help blacks in Omaha secure employment and to encourage business enterprises among African Americans.
The South Omaha Stockyards employed a large portion of the city's African American workers from the South. Working conditions there were often brutal. These workers made significant gains after organizing with the I.W.W. in the 1920s. During the Depression of the 1930s, however, they suffered setbacks when major packinghouses closed.
In the 1930s, a clandestine group called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor was founded in Omaha. Also known as the "Knights of Liberty", it was a secret African -merican organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."
In 1938 Mildred Brown
founded The Omaha Star
. Starting with a circulation of 6,000, it quickly became the city's only African-American newspaper, featuring positive news, role models and activities throughout the community. The paper strongly supported the local civil rights movement, for which it often featured successes and highlighted the challenges facing blacks in Omaha. The Star reported proudly on the career of Captain Alfonza W. Davis, who fought with the Tuskegee Airmen
during World War II
. He was presumed Killed In Action
when his aircraft disappeared over Germany in 1944.
. Founded at Creighton University
, this club included African-American high school students and white Creighton University
students who actively sought to fight racial discrimination in housing and the workplace.
In the 1950s the offices of the Omaha Star hosted the DePorres Club after Creighton banned them from campus. The club hosted a community center called the Omaha DePorres Center to meet the needs of low-income families. It eventually started branches in Denver and Kansas City. According to one historian, "Their goals and tactics foreshadowed the efforts of civil rights
activists throughout the nation in the 1960s."
One of the early efforts led by the DePorres Club was the 1952-54 Omaha Bus Boycott. Mildred Brown
, a leader of the boycott, extolled readers of the Omaha Star to "Don’t ride Omaha’s buses or streetcars. If you must ride, protest by using 18 pennies." Focusing on ending the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Company's policy of not hiring black drivers, the boycott was successful.
In 1958 a group of African American educators in Omaha Public Schools started a professional caucus called Concerned and Caring Educators that continues to this day. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Salem Baptist Church in North Omaha late that same year.
was a barber. Other notable activists important to Omaha's African American community during this period included Rowena Moore
, Lois Mark Stalvey, and Bertha Calloway
.
In 1963 a group of African American ministers from North Omaha formed a group called the "Citizens Civic Committee for Civil Liberties", or 4CL. The group rallied throughout the city to demand civil rights
for all African Americans through picketing, stand-ins during city council meetings and other efforts. They set forth the formal agenda for Omaha's civil rights movement, with three main goals to be achieved through state legislation: to ensure equal housing opportunities and equal job opportunities for African Americans, and to secure integrated schools through busing for all African American students. That year local youth activists
were successful in bringing down the color barrier at Peony Park
, the city's main amusement park, after protesting at the admission gates for several weeks.
According to the Nebraska Legislature
, civil rights demonstrations in Omaha in 1963 led to the creation of the Omaha Human Rights Commission. According to a period documentary
, this commission was set up only to placate civil rights activists, and because of that, failed. 4CL and other groups also saw this Commission as a stalling tactic by Omaha's city leaders.
Numerous national civil rights leaders made Omaha a stop on their speaking circuits. After Dr. King spoke in 1958, Malcolm X spoke in Omaha in 1964. In 1966 Robert Kennedy visited North Omaha during his presidential campaign and spoke at Creighton University in support of Omaha's civil rights activists.
Starting in 1963, the Black Association for Nationalism Through Unity (BANTU) was a unique Omaha youth activism
group that organized African American students in the city's high schools. Focusing on black power
and self-determination
, BANTU claimed concessions from the Omaha City Council, with Senator Edward R. Danners lobbying the Nebraska State Legislature on their behalf. BANTU maintained a unique relationship with the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party
(BPP). This may may have included being a recruiting group for the BPP.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Black Panthers were actively organizing Freedom School
s in Omaha's public housing projects. They were blamed for starting several of the riots in the 1960s.
Achievements of the movement in Omaha included the desegregation of city facilities in the late 1950s, the 1964 event of Omahan Gale Sayers
becoming the first African American NFL player to share a room with a white player, and the 1966 production of the Oscar-nominated documentary A Time for Burning
, which tracked the sentiment of 1960s white Omaha towards African Americans. In 1968 Marlin Briscoe
, a football star and graduate of a local high school
, became the first black quarterback in the American Football League
, and in 1970 local barber and law school graduate Ernie Chambers
was elected to the Nebraska State Legislature as the newest African American state legislator, preceded by other African Americans Edward Danner, John Adams Sr. and his son John Adams Jr. The Negro History Society formally opened the Great Plains Black History Museum
in 1976 with the goal of celebrating African American contributions to the city and region.
While the Omaha civil rights movement
of the 1950s and 60s did not gain its goals of passage of state laws to ensure equal housing and job opportunities, it did succeed in securing integrated school busing, and employment with the municipal transit company, for example. The movement also was seen as successful in raising awareness of the inequities facing African Americans in Omaha.
The City of Omaha installed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Cornerstone Memorial at the NW corner of 24th & Lake Streets in 2002. In 2003 native Omahan Thomas Warren was named the city’s first African American police chief
. His advancement could be seen as part of the political progression of African Americans in the city.
In 2005, Ernie Chambers became the longest-serving State Senator in Nebraska history, with more than 32 years of service to his community and state. Because of a term-limit bill enacted in the Nebraska State Legislature, Chambers was not be allowed to run for reelection when his term expired in 2008.
In response to West Omaha districts' concerns about schools, Senator Chambers proposed a controversial school separation plan for Omaha in the Nebraska State Legislature. He lobbied to create three districts in the city. Each was to be drawn along geographic boundaries that loosely correlated to the residential (and racial) housing patterns in the city: African Americans in North Omaha, Hispanic/Latinos in South Omaha, and Caucasians in West Omaha. The State Legislature signed this plan into law in April 2006.
Within a month, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
brought a lawsuit
. It argued that due to Omaha's racially segregated residential patterns, subdivided school districts will also be racially segregated, contrary to the historic case of Brown v. Board of Education
.
American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans...
in Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
has roots that extend back until at least 1912. With a history of racial tension
Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska
Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska occurred mostly because of the city's volatile mixture of high numbers of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and African-American migrants from the Deep South. While racial discrimination existed at several levels, the violent outbreaks were within...
that starts before the founding of the city
History of Omaha, Nebraska
The history of Omaha, Nebraska began before the settlement of the city, with speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa staking land across the Missouri River illegally as early as the 1840s. Before it was legal to claim land in Indian Country, William D. Brown was operating the Lone Tree...
, Omaha has been the home of numerous overt efforts related to securing civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
for African Americans
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska are central to the development and growth of the 43rd largest city in the United States. The first free black settler in the city arrived in 1854, the year the city was incorporated....
since at least the 1920s.
Background
Prior to the formal founding of the civil rights movement in Omaha, several African Americans secured status that was relevant to later struggles. While the Civil Rights Movement proper did not begin until the 1940s, the historical significance of Omaha in securing civil rights for a variety of American people could be said to start in 1876.That year stands out in the American civil rights movement
American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)
The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans...
as Omaha became the location of the pivotal 1876 trial of Standing Bear v. Crook. In that trial a U.S. district court judge at Fort Omaha
Fort Omaha
Fort Omaha, originally known as Sherman Barracks and then Omaha Barracks, is an Indian War-era United States Army supply installation. Located at 5730 North 30th Street, with the entrance at North 30th and Fort Streets in modern-day North Omaha, Nebraska, the facility is primarily occupied by ...
set U.S. legal precedent by recognising the personhood of Native Americans, thereby granting American Indians the rights of citizens. With Standing Bear
Standing Bear
Standing Bear was a Ponca Native American chief who successfully argued in U.S...
, a Ponca
Ponca
The Ponca are a Native American people of the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan-language group. There are two federally recognized Ponca tribes: the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska and the Ponca Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma...
chief on trail, local journalist Thomas Tibbles
Thomas Tibbles
Thomas Henry Tibbles was a journalist and author from Omaha, Nebraska who became an activist for Native American rights in the United States during the late nineteenth century.- Life :Born in Ohio, he moved to Illinois with his parents...
, Omaha Susette LaFlesche and General Crook himself testified on behalf of acknowledging Native American rights. For the first time, a U.S. court had ruled that an Indian was, officially, a person. Standing Bear won the case, securing the right of his tribe to leave their Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
reservation and return to their Nebraska homelands.
The first record of community violence against blacks in Omaha occurred in 1891, when an African American man called Joe Coe
Joe Coe
Joe Coe, also known as George Smith, was an African-American laborer who was lynched on October 18, 1891 in Omaha, Nebraska. Overwhelmed by a mob of one thousand at the Douglas County Courthouse, the twelve city police officers stood by without intervening...
was lynched by a vigilante mob for allegedly raping a white
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
girl. Another lynching occurred in 1919 when a white mob stormed the Douglas County Courthouse
Douglas County Courthouse (Omaha)
The present Douglas County Courthouse is located at 1701 Farnam Street in Omaha, Nebraska. Built in 1912, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Notable events at the courthouse include two lynchings and the city's first Civil Rights Era sit-in protest...
to take Willy Brown, an African American accused of raping a young white woman. While these incidents terrified the population of African Americans in the community and effectively segregated them from the rest of the city, the civil rights movement in Omaha did not gain large-scale momentum until the 1920s.
Early years
With early 20th century growth in the number of African American migrants recruited by the meatpacking industry, the population doubled from 1910-1920. Some groups in the city resisted such changes. Some public places discriminated against African Americans, although segregation was not legal. Up to the 1940s and 1950s, many of the city's restaurants were effectively segregated, with signs that stated, "We Don't Serve Any Colored Race."The first organized effort for civil rights in Omaha was the creation of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
(NAACP) in 1912. At the national level, leadership and membership were integrated. The chapter has continued.
Other civil rights organizations soon formed in Omaha, part of the early 20th century spirit of reform that generated many progressive groups. In 1917 George Wells Parker
George Wells Parker
George Wells Parker was an African American political activist and writer who co-founded the Hamitic League of the World....
founded the Hamitic League of the World
Hamitic League of the World
Hamitic League of the World was an African American nationalist organization. Its declared aims were:The word Hamitic derives from Ham the son of Noah in the Old Testament. The organisation was founded in 1917 by George Wells Parker. In 1918 it published his pamphlet Children of the Sun...
in Omaha. In 1918 the League published his pamphlet Children of the Sun. The Hamitic League was committed to black nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
. Based in New York, Cyril Briggs became editor of their journal, The Crusader. It later became the journal of the African Blood Brotherhood
African Blood Brotherhood
The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption was a radical U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret society...
(ABB).
In the 1920s the Baptist minister Earl Little founded the Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
Universal Negro Improvement Association. Little was the father of Malcolm, who later named himself Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
when he became a Black Muslim minister and spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X was born in Omaha
Malcolm X House Site
The Malcolm X House Site located at 3448 Pinkney Street in North Omaha, Nebraska, marks the place where Malcolm X first lived with his family. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and is also on the Nebraska list of heritage sites.-History:Malcolm Little was born...
in 1925, but his family moved away from the city while he was young.
There are reports of African Blood Brotherhood
African Blood Brotherhood
The African Blood Brotherhood for African Liberation and Redemption was a radical U.S. black liberation organization established in 1919 in New York City by journalist Cyril Briggs. The group was established as a propaganda organization built on the model of the secret society...
-related action in Omaha, particularly around the time of the Willy Brown lynching. Witnessing the mob rule that overtook the city at the time of the lynching horrified many people. One of those who was radicalized was Harry Haywood
Harry Haywood
Harry Haywood was a leading figure in both the Communist Party of the United States and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . He contributed major theory to Marxist thinking on the national question of African Americans in the United States...
, who went on to become involved with the African Blood Brotherhood. Later Haywood became a leading African American member of the Communist Party of the United States. He was active from the 1920s to his death in 1981.
The Urban League of Nebraska had the first chapter founded in the American West of the national organization . Started in North Omaha in 1928, the Urban League of Nebraska was led by Whitney Young
Whitney Young
Whitney Moore Young Jr. was an American civil rights leader.He spent most of his career working to end employment discrimination in the United States and turning the National Urban League from a relatively passive civil rights organization into one that aggressively fought for equitable access to...
, who quickly more than tripled the membership. The Urban League of Nebraska continues.
During this period the National Federation of Colored Women had five chapters in North Omaha with more than 750 members. They actively conducted a variety of social, political and charitable work throughout the city of Omaha. Starting in 1920, the Colored Commercial Club organized to help blacks in Omaha secure employment and to encourage business enterprises among African Americans.
The South Omaha Stockyards employed a large portion of the city's African American workers from the South. Working conditions there were often brutal. These workers made significant gains after organizing with the I.W.W. in the 1920s. During the Depression of the 1930s, however, they suffered setbacks when major packinghouses closed.
In the 1930s, a clandestine group called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor was founded in Omaha. Also known as the "Knights of Liberty", it was a secret African -merican organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."
In 1938 Mildred Brown
Mildred Brown
Mildred Brown was an African American journalist, newspaper publisher, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska. Part of the Great Migration, she came from Alabama via Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa...
founded The Omaha Star
Omaha Star
The Omaha Star is a newspaper founded in 1938 in North Omaha, Nebraska by Mildred Brown and her husband S. Edward Gilbert. Housed in the historic Omaha Star building in the Near North Side neighborhood, today the Omaha Star is the only remaining African-American newspaper in Omaha and the only one...
. Starting with a circulation of 6,000, it quickly became the city's only African-American newspaper, featuring positive news, role models and activities throughout the community. The paper strongly supported the local civil rights movement, for which it often featured successes and highlighted the challenges facing blacks in Omaha. The Star reported proudly on the career of Captain Alfonza W. Davis, who fought with the Tuskegee Airmen
Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen is the popular name of a group of African American pilots who fought in World War II. Formally, they were the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps....
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He was presumed Killed In Action
Killed in action
Killed in action is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own forces at the hands of hostile forces. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA need not have fired their weapons but have been killed due to...
when his aircraft disappeared over Germany in 1944.
1947 to 1962
In 1947 a group of students developed the DePorres ClubDePorres Club
The DePorres Club was an early pioneer organization in the Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska, whose "goals and tactics foreshadowed the efforts of civil rights activists throughout the nation in the 1960s." The club was an affiliate of CORE.-History:...
. Founded at Creighton University
Creighton University
Creighton University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1878, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by...
, this club included African-American high school students and white Creighton University
Creighton University
Creighton University is a private, coeducational, Jesuit, Roman Catholic university located in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1878, the school is one of 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. The university is accredited by...
students who actively sought to fight racial discrimination in housing and the workplace.
In the 1950s the offices of the Omaha Star hosted the DePorres Club after Creighton banned them from campus. The club hosted a community center called the Omaha DePorres Center to meet the needs of low-income families. It eventually started branches in Denver and Kansas City. According to one historian, "Their goals and tactics foreshadowed the efforts of civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
activists throughout the nation in the 1960s."
One of the early efforts led by the DePorres Club was the 1952-54 Omaha Bus Boycott. Mildred Brown
Mildred Brown
Mildred Brown was an African American journalist, newspaper publisher, and leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska. Part of the Great Migration, she came from Alabama via Chicago and Des Moines, Iowa...
, a leader of the boycott, extolled readers of the Omaha Star to "Don’t ride Omaha’s buses or streetcars. If you must ride, protest by using 18 pennies." Focusing on ending the Omaha and Council Bluffs Street Railway Company's policy of not hiring black drivers, the boycott was successful.
In 1958 a group of African American educators in Omaha Public Schools started a professional caucus called Concerned and Caring Educators that continues to this day. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Salem Baptist Church in North Omaha late that same year.
1963-1971
During the 1960s community activists liked to gather at North Omaha neighborhood locations, including the Fair Deal Cafe on 24th Street and Goodwin’s Spencer Street Barbershop at 3116 N. 24th Street, where young Ernie ChambersErnie Chambers
Ernest W. Chambers is a former Nebraska State Senator who represented North Omaha's 11th District in the Nebraska State Legislature. He is also a civil rights activist and is considered by most citizens of Nebraska as the most prominent and outspoken African American leader in the state...
was a barber. Other notable activists important to Omaha's African American community during this period included Rowena Moore
Rowena Moore
Rowena Moore was a union and civic activist, and founder of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska. She led the effort to have the Malcolm X House Site recognized for its association with the life of the national civil rights leader...
, Lois Mark Stalvey, and Bertha Calloway
Bertha Calloway
Bertha Calloway is an African-American community activist and historian in North Omaha, Nebraska. The founder of the Negro History Society and the Great Plains Black History Museum, Calloway won awards from several organizations for her activism in the community and Nebraska...
.
In 1963 a group of African American ministers from North Omaha formed a group called the "Citizens Civic Committee for Civil Liberties", or 4CL. The group rallied throughout the city to demand civil rights
Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
for all African Americans through picketing, stand-ins during city council meetings and other efforts. They set forth the formal agenda for Omaha's civil rights movement, with three main goals to be achieved through state legislation: to ensure equal housing opportunities and equal job opportunities for African Americans, and to secure integrated schools through busing for all African American students. That year local youth activists
Youth activism
Youth activism is when the youth voice is engaged in community organizing for social change. Around the world, young people are engaged in activism as planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, social workers, decision-makers, advocates and leading actors in the environmental movement, social...
were successful in bringing down the color barrier at Peony Park
Peony Park
Peony Park was an amusement park located at North 78th and Cass Streets in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1919, over the next seventy-five years the park included a pool, beach and waterslide, a ballroom that billed itself as "1 acre under one roof," an open air dance area for 3000 dancers,...
, the city's main amusement park, after protesting at the admission gates for several weeks.
According to the Nebraska Legislature
Nebraska Legislature
The Nebraska Legislature is the supreme legislative body of the State of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. The Legislature meets at the Nebraska State Capitol in the City of Lincoln, Lancaster County....
, civil rights demonstrations in Omaha in 1963 led to the creation of the Omaha Human Rights Commission. According to a period documentary
A Time for Burning
A Time for Burning is a 1966 American documentary film which explores the attempts of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to "negro" Lutherans in the city's north side. The film was directed by San Francisco filmmaker...
, this commission was set up only to placate civil rights activists, and because of that, failed. 4CL and other groups also saw this Commission as a stalling tactic by Omaha's city leaders.
Numerous national civil rights leaders made Omaha a stop on their speaking circuits. After Dr. King spoke in 1958, Malcolm X spoke in Omaha in 1964. In 1966 Robert Kennedy visited North Omaha during his presidential campaign and spoke at Creighton University in support of Omaha's civil rights activists.
Starting in 1963, the Black Association for Nationalism Through Unity (BANTU) was a unique Omaha youth activism
Youth activism
Youth activism is when the youth voice is engaged in community organizing for social change. Around the world, young people are engaged in activism as planners, researchers, teachers, evaluators, social workers, decision-makers, advocates and leading actors in the environmental movement, social...
group that organized African American students in the city's high schools. Focusing on black power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
and self-determination
Self-determination
Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference...
, BANTU claimed concessions from the Omaha City Council, with Senator Edward R. Danners lobbying the Nebraska State Legislature on their behalf. BANTU maintained a unique relationship with the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
(BPP). This may may have included being a recruiting group for the BPP.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Black Panthers were actively organizing Freedom School
Freedom School
The Freedom School was located in Colorado, United States, offering a series of lectures by libertarian theorist Robert LeFevre from 1957 to 1968. LeFevre extended this work to the related Rampart College, an unaccredited four-year school, in 1963. Both shared the same campus...
s in Omaha's public housing projects. They were blamed for starting several of the riots in the 1960s.
Achievements of the movement in Omaha included the desegregation of city facilities in the late 1950s, the 1964 event of Omahan Gale Sayers
Gale Sayers
Gale Eugene Sayers also known as "The Kansas Comet", is a former professional football player in the National Football League who spent his entire career with the Chicago Bears....
becoming the first African American NFL player to share a room with a white player, and the 1966 production of the Oscar-nominated documentary A Time for Burning
A Time for Burning
A Time for Burning is a 1966 American documentary film which explores the attempts of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to "negro" Lutherans in the city's north side. The film was directed by San Francisco filmmaker...
, which tracked the sentiment of 1960s white Omaha towards African Americans. In 1968 Marlin Briscoe
Marlin Briscoe
Marlin Oliver Briscoe is a former American collegiate and Professional Football wide receiver/quarterback who played professionally for nine years...
, a football star and graduate of a local high school
Technical High School (Omaha, Nebraska)
Technical High School was a public high school that was located at 3215 Cuming Street in Omaha, Nebraska. Opened in 1923, the school was said to be the largest high school west of Chicago. It was the largest in the Omaha area before it was closed in 1984...
, became the first black quarterback in the American Football League
American Football League
The American Football League was a major American Professional Football league that operated from 1960 until 1969, when the established National Football League merged with it. The upstart AFL operated in direct competition with the more established NFL throughout its existence...
, and in 1970 local barber and law school graduate Ernie Chambers
Ernie Chambers
Ernest W. Chambers is a former Nebraska State Senator who represented North Omaha's 11th District in the Nebraska State Legislature. He is also a civil rights activist and is considered by most citizens of Nebraska as the most prominent and outspoken African American leader in the state...
was elected to the Nebraska State Legislature as the newest African American state legislator, preceded by other African Americans Edward Danner, John Adams Sr. and his son John Adams Jr. The Negro History Society formally opened the Great Plains Black History Museum
Great Plains Black History Museum
The Great Plains Black History Museum is located at 2213 Lake Street in the Near North Side neighborhood in North Omaha, Nebraska. It is housed in the Webster Telephone Exchange Building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places...
in 1976 with the goal of celebrating African American contributions to the city and region.
While the Omaha civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
of the 1950s and 60s did not gain its goals of passage of state laws to ensure equal housing and job opportunities, it did succeed in securing integrated school busing, and employment with the municipal transit company, for example. The movement also was seen as successful in raising awareness of the inequities facing African Americans in Omaha.
1972-present
Chief of police
A Chief of Police is the title typically given to the top official in the chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. Alternate titles for this position include Commissioner, Superintendent, and Chief constable...
. His advancement could be seen as part of the political progression of African Americans in the city.
In 2005, Ernie Chambers became the longest-serving State Senator in Nebraska history, with more than 32 years of service to his community and state. Because of a term-limit bill enacted in the Nebraska State Legislature, Chambers was not be allowed to run for reelection when his term expired in 2008.
In response to West Omaha districts' concerns about schools, Senator Chambers proposed a controversial school separation plan for Omaha in the Nebraska State Legislature. He lobbied to create three districts in the city. Each was to be drawn along geographic boundaries that loosely correlated to the residential (and racial) housing patterns in the city: African Americans in North Omaha, Hispanic/Latinos in South Omaha, and Caucasians in West Omaha. The State Legislature signed this plan into law in April 2006.
Within a month, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
brought a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
. It argued that due to Omaha's racially segregated residential patterns, subdivided school districts will also be racially segregated, contrary to the historic case of Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...
.
See also
- American Civil Rights MovementAmerican Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was a long, primarily nonviolent struggle to bring full civil rights and equality under the law to all Americans...
- History of North Omaha, NebraskaHistory of North Omaha, NebraskaThe history of North Omaha, Nebraska includes wildcat banks, ethnic enclaves, race riots and social change spanning over 200 years. With a recorded history that pre-dates the rest of the city, North Omaha has roots back to 1812 with the founding of Fort Lisa...
- Timeline of North Omaha, Nebraska historyTimeline of North Omaha, Nebraska historySignificant events in the history of North Omaha, Nebraska include the Pawnee, Otoe and Sioux nations; the African American community; Irish, Czech, and other European immigrants, and; several other populations. Several important settlements and towns were built in the area, as well as important...
- The Communist Party USA and African-Americans
- Racial Tension in Omaha, NebraskaRacial tension in Omaha, NebraskaRacial tension in Omaha, Nebraska occurred mostly because of the city's volatile mixture of high numbers of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and African-American migrants from the Deep South. While racial discrimination existed at several levels, the violent outbreaks were within...
- History of slavery in NebraskaHistory of slavery in NebraskaThe history of slavery in Nebraska is generally seen as short and limited. The issue was contentious for the legislature between the creation of the Nebraska Territory in 1854 and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. However, there was apparently a particular acceptance of African...