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EspañolCIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA
(Redirected from Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska)
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.
Prior to the formal founding of the civil rights movement in Omaha, several African Americans secured status that was relevant to later struggles. The first African American born in Omaha was William Leper, born in 1872 at 13th and Jackson Streets. The first black physician in Omaha was a Dr. Stephenson who came to Omaha in 1890.[1]
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 perhaps started in 1876. That year stands out in the American Civil Rights Movement as Omaha became the location of the pivotal 1876 trail of ''Standing Bear v. Crook''. In that trial a U.S. district court judge at Fort Omaha set U.S. legal precedent by recognizing 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.[2]
The first record of overt community racism in Omaha comes from 1891, when an African American man named George Smith was lynched by a vigilante mob for reportedly raping a white girl.[2] Another lynching occurred in 1919 when a white mob stormed the Douglas County Courthouse demanding the person of 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[4], the Civil Rights Movement in Omaha did not gain large-scale momentum until the 1920s.[5]
Despite the common perception that overt discrimination against African Americans was limited to the South, one prominent late Omahan remembers signs throughout the city's restaurants in the early part of the century that said, "We Don't Serve Any Colored Race."[6] The first recorded efforts to work for civil rights in Omaha was the creation of the Omaha chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1912, continuing to this day.[7] In 1917 George Wells Parker founded the Hamitic League of the World in Omaha, and in 1918 it published his pamphlet ''Children of the Sun.'' The Hamitic League was committed to Black nationalism. At this time Cyril Briggs also became the editor of their journal, ''The Crusader'', which subsequently became the journal of the African Blood Brotherhood.
In the 1920s the Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association was founded by Earl Little, a Baptist minister and the father of Malcolm X. Malcolm X was born in Omaha in 1925. There are reports of African Blood Brotherhood-related action in Omaha, particularly around the time of the Willy Brown lynching. Harry Haywood is said to have become radicalized by the mob rule that overtook the city at the time, which drove him to become involved with the African Blood Brotherhood. Haywood went on to become a leading African American member of the Communist Party of the United States from the 1920s through to his death in 1981.
The Urban League of Nebraska the first chapter of the national organization founded in the American West.[8] It was started in North Omaha in 1928 and led by Whitney Young, who more than tripled the membership. The Urban League of Nebraska continues today.[9] 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.[10] 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, often forcing them to work under brutal working conditions. These workers made significant gains after organizing with the I.W.W. in the 1920s; however, they were setback again after major packinghouse closures in the 1930s.[11]
Throughout the 1930s a clandestine group called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, also know as the "Knights of Liberty", was founded in Omaha as a secret African American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."[12] The ''Omaha Star'' was founded in 1938 with a circulation of 6,000. Founded by Mildred Brown, 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 civil rights movement in Omaha, often featuring the successes and highlighting the challenges facing blacks in Omaha. One of the people the ''Star'' reported on was 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.
Perhaps responding to this type of racism was an interesting instance of student activism and community organizing in Omaha was the development of the DePorres Club. Founded at Creighton University in 1947,[13] this club was a group of African American high school students and white Creighton University students that actively sought to fight racial discrimination in housing and the workplace.[14] 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, and 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."[15] In 1958 the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Salem Baptist Church in North Omaha.
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.
During the 1960s popular locations in North Omaha for community activists to gather included the Fair Deal Cafe on 24th Street and Goodwin’s Spencer Street Barbershop at 3116 N. 24th Street, where young Ernie Chambers was a barber.[16] In 1964, Gale Sayers of Omaha was the first African American NFL player to share a room with a white player.[17]
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 throughout Omaha through picketing, stand-ins during city council meetings and other efforts.[18] Their agenda set forth the formal agenda for Omaha's civil rights movement, and centered on three main goals. They were to set into Nebraska State law policies ensuring equal housing opportunities, equal job opportunities and integrated school busing for all African American students.
According to the Nebraska Legislature, civil rights demonstrations in Omaha in 1963 led to the creation of the Omaha Human Rights Commission.[19] 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.[20]
Numerous civil rights leaders made Omaha a stop on their speaking circuits. After Dr. King spoke in 1958, Malcolm X spoke in Omaha in 1964.[21] In 1966 Robert Kennedy visited North Omaha in his quest to become president, speaking 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 that Nebraska State Legislature on their behalf. BANTU maintained a unique relationship with the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party, which may have included being a recruiting group for the BPP.[22]
1966 saw the release of the Oscar-nominated documentary ''A Time for Burning'', which tracked the sentiment of 1960s white Omaha towards African Americans, recent actions of Senator Ernie Chambers illustrate the sentiment today. In 1968 Marlin Briscoe, a local high school football star became the first black quarterback in the American Football League.
The Black Panthers were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organizing Freedom Schools in Omaha's public housing projects, and eventually being blamed for several of the riots in the 1960s.[23] In 1970 local barber and law school graduate Ernie Chambers was elected to Nebraska State Legislature for the first time. In 1976 the Negro History Society formally opened the Great Plains Black History Museum to celebrate African American contributions to the city and region.
While the Omaha civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s did not gain its popularly stated goals of gaining a law from the Nebraska State Legislature ensuring equal housing opportunities or a separate law ensuring equal job opportunities, it did succeed in securing integrated school busing for a period. The movement is seen as successful for raising awareness of the inequities facing African Americans in Omaha.[18]
The City of Omaha installed the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Cornerstone Memorial at the NW corner of 24th & Lake Streets in 2002, and in 2003 native Omahan Thomas Warren became the city’s first African American police chief.
Ernie Chambers became the longest-serving State Senator in Nebraska history in 2005, with more than 32 years of service to his community and state. He will not be allowed to run for election again when his term expires in 2008 because of a term limit bill enacted in the Nebraska State Legislature.[25]
Senator Chambers proposed a controversial school separation plan for Omaha in the Nebraska State Legislature in response to the West Omaha districts' concerns by lobbying to create three districts in the city, with each drawn along geographic boundaries that loosely correlate to the racial segregation of 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, arguing 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''.[26]
★ American Civil Rights Movement
★ History of North Omaha, Nebraska
★ Timeline of North Omaha, Nebraska history
★ The Communist Party and African-Americans
★ Racial Tension in Omaha, Nebraska
★ History of slavery in Nebraska
1. (1895) "Negroes in Omaha," ''Omaha Progress'' February 21, 1895.
2. Bristow, D. (2002)
3. Bristow, D. (2002)
4. (1994) ''Street of Dreams.'' (VHS) Nebraska Public Television.
5. Bish, James D. (1989) The Black Experience in Selected Nebraska Counties, 1854-1920. M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
6. Preston Love reported seeing this sign repeatedly in Omaha cafes in the 1940s and 50s in Bristow, D. (n.d.) Swingin' with Preston Love. ''Nebraska Life.''
7. (n.d.)Timeline: Omaha's 150th Birthday. KETV.com
8. (2007) African American History in the American West: Timeline. University of Washington.
9. (2007) Our History Urban League of Nebraska.
10. Nebraska Writers Project (n.d. ''est 1938) ''Negroes in Nebraska'' Workers Progress Administration.
11. Larsen, L. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) ''The Gate City: A History of Omaha.''
12. (n.d.) Moses Dickson
13. (1992) ''A Street of Dreams.'' Nebraska ETV Network (video)
14. (n.d.)Mildred Brown ''Nebraska Studies.''
15. Taylor, Q. (2007) The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed - Timeline. Seattle: University of Washington.
16. "Cutting the path..."
17. Brandt, G. "Hall of Fame offers plenty of new intrigue, NFL.com website. Accessed 4/27/07."
18. ''A Street of Dreams.''
19. (n.d.) [www.unicam.state.ne.us/bluebook/intro/history.pdf History: Earliest records]. State of Nebraska Unicameral.
20. Cutting the path to freedom. ''The Reader.''
21. Cutting the path.
22. Howard, A. M. (2006, Sep) The Omaha Black Panther Party and BANTU: Exploitation or a Relationship of Mutual Convenience Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, NA, Atlanta, GA.
23. (1992) ''A Street of Dreams.'' (VHS) Nebraska Public Television.
24. ''A Street of Dreams.''
25. Associated Press (Apr 25, 2005). For the Record. ''Lincoln Journal Star.'' Retrieved on 24 May 2006.
26. Schools Plan in Nebraska Is Challenged Sam Dillon
★ Fast Facts about Omaha's African American community
★ Discover North Omaha website
★ Discover Black Omaha website
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.
| Contents |
| Background |
| Early years |
| 1963-1971 |
| 1972-present |
| See also |
| References |
| External links |
Background
Prior to the formal founding of the civil rights movement in Omaha, several African Americans secured status that was relevant to later struggles. The first African American born in Omaha was William Leper, born in 1872 at 13th and Jackson Streets. The first black physician in Omaha was a Dr. Stephenson who came to Omaha in 1890.[1]
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 perhaps started in 1876. That year stands out in the American Civil Rights Movement as Omaha became the location of the pivotal 1876 trail of ''Standing Bear v. Crook''. In that trial a U.S. district court judge at Fort Omaha set U.S. legal precedent by recognizing 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.[2]
The first record of overt community racism in Omaha comes from 1891, when an African American man named George Smith was lynched by a vigilante mob for reportedly raping a white girl.[2] Another lynching occurred in 1919 when a white mob stormed the Douglas County Courthouse demanding the person of 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[4], the Civil Rights Movement in Omaha did not gain large-scale momentum until the 1920s.[5]
Early years
Despite the common perception that overt discrimination against African Americans was limited to the South, one prominent late Omahan remembers signs throughout the city's restaurants in the early part of the century that said, "We Don't Serve Any Colored Race."[6] The first recorded efforts to work for civil rights in Omaha was the creation of the Omaha chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1912, continuing to this day.[7] In 1917 George Wells Parker founded the Hamitic League of the World in Omaha, and in 1918 it published his pamphlet ''Children of the Sun.'' The Hamitic League was committed to Black nationalism. At this time Cyril Briggs also became the editor of their journal, ''The Crusader'', which subsequently became the journal of the African Blood Brotherhood.
In the 1920s the Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association was founded by Earl Little, a Baptist minister and the father of Malcolm X. Malcolm X was born in Omaha in 1925. There are reports of African Blood Brotherhood-related action in Omaha, particularly around the time of the Willy Brown lynching. Harry Haywood is said to have become radicalized by the mob rule that overtook the city at the time, which drove him to become involved with the African Blood Brotherhood. Haywood went on to become a leading African American member of the Communist Party of the United States from the 1920s through to his death in 1981.
The Urban League of Nebraska the first chapter of the national organization founded in the American West.[8] It was started in North Omaha in 1928 and led by Whitney Young, who more than tripled the membership. The Urban League of Nebraska continues today.[9] 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.[10] 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, often forcing them to work under brutal working conditions. These workers made significant gains after organizing with the I.W.W. in the 1920s; however, they were setback again after major packinghouse closures in the 1930s.[11]
Throughout the 1930s a clandestine group called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, also know as the "Knights of Liberty", was founded in Omaha as a secret African American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."[12] The ''Omaha Star'' was founded in 1938 with a circulation of 6,000. Founded by Mildred Brown, 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 civil rights movement in Omaha, often featuring the successes and highlighting the challenges facing blacks in Omaha. One of the people the ''Star'' reported on was 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.
Perhaps responding to this type of racism was an interesting instance of student activism and community organizing in Omaha was the development of the DePorres Club. Founded at Creighton University in 1947,[13] this club was a group of African American high school students and white Creighton University students that actively sought to fight racial discrimination in housing and the workplace.[14] 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, and 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."[15] In 1958 the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Salem Baptist Church in North Omaha.
1963-1971
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.
During the 1960s popular locations in North Omaha for community activists to gather included the Fair Deal Cafe on 24th Street and Goodwin’s Spencer Street Barbershop at 3116 N. 24th Street, where young Ernie Chambers was a barber.[16] In 1964, Gale Sayers of Omaha was the first African American NFL player to share a room with a white player.[17]
Photo of Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers.
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 throughout Omaha through picketing, stand-ins during city council meetings and other efforts.[18] Their agenda set forth the formal agenda for Omaha's civil rights movement, and centered on three main goals. They were to set into Nebraska State law policies ensuring equal housing opportunities, equal job opportunities and integrated school busing for all African American students.
According to the Nebraska Legislature, civil rights demonstrations in Omaha in 1963 led to the creation of the Omaha Human Rights Commission.[19] 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.[20]
Numerous civil rights leaders made Omaha a stop on their speaking circuits. After Dr. King spoke in 1958, Malcolm X spoke in Omaha in 1964.[21] In 1966 Robert Kennedy visited North Omaha in his quest to become president, speaking 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 that Nebraska State Legislature on their behalf. BANTU maintained a unique relationship with the Omaha chapter of the Black Panther Party, which may have included being a recruiting group for the BPP.[22]
1966 saw the release of the Oscar-nominated documentary ''A Time for Burning'', which tracked the sentiment of 1960s white Omaha towards African Americans, recent actions of Senator Ernie Chambers illustrate the sentiment today. In 1968 Marlin Briscoe, a local high school football star became the first black quarterback in the American Football League.
The Black Panthers were active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organizing Freedom Schools in Omaha's public housing projects, and eventually being blamed for several of the riots in the 1960s.[23] In 1970 local barber and law school graduate Ernie Chambers was elected to Nebraska State Legislature for the first time. In 1976 the Negro History Society formally opened the Great Plains Black History Museum to celebrate African American contributions to the city and region.
While the Omaha civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s did not gain its popularly stated goals of gaining a law from the Nebraska State Legislature ensuring equal housing opportunities or a separate law ensuring equal job opportunities, it did succeed in securing integrated school busing for a period. The movement is seen as successful for raising awareness of the inequities facing African Americans in Omaha.[18]
1972-present
Photo of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Cornerstone Memorial at the NW corner of 24th & Lake St in North 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, and in 2003 native Omahan Thomas Warren became the city’s first African American police chief.
Ernie Chambers became the longest-serving State Senator in Nebraska history in 2005, with more than 32 years of service to his community and state. He will not be allowed to run for election again when his term expires in 2008 because of a term limit bill enacted in the Nebraska State Legislature.[25]
Senator Chambers proposed a controversial school separation plan for Omaha in the Nebraska State Legislature in response to the West Omaha districts' concerns by lobbying to create three districts in the city, with each drawn along geographic boundaries that loosely correlate to the racial segregation of 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, arguing 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''.[26]
See also
★ American Civil Rights Movement
★ History of North Omaha, Nebraska
★ Timeline of North Omaha, Nebraska history
★ The Communist Party and African-Americans
★ Racial Tension in Omaha, Nebraska
★ History of slavery in Nebraska
References
1. (1895) "Negroes in Omaha," ''Omaha Progress'' February 21, 1895.
2. Bristow, D. (2002)
3. Bristow, D. (2002)
4. (1994) ''Street of Dreams.'' (VHS) Nebraska Public Television.
5. Bish, James D. (1989) The Black Experience in Selected Nebraska Counties, 1854-1920. M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
6. Preston Love reported seeing this sign repeatedly in Omaha cafes in the 1940s and 50s in Bristow, D. (n.d.) Swingin' with Preston Love. ''Nebraska Life.''
7. (n.d.)Timeline: Omaha's 150th Birthday. KETV.com
8. (2007) African American History in the American West: Timeline. University of Washington.
9. (2007) Our History Urban League of Nebraska.
10. Nebraska Writers Project (n.d. ''est 1938) ''Negroes in Nebraska'' Workers Progress Administration.
11. Larsen, L. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) ''The Gate City: A History of Omaha.''
12. (n.d.) Moses Dickson
13. (1992) ''A Street of Dreams.'' Nebraska ETV Network (video)
14. (n.d.)Mildred Brown ''Nebraska Studies.''
15. Taylor, Q. (2007) The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed - Timeline. Seattle: University of Washington.
16. "Cutting the path..."
17. Brandt, G. "Hall of Fame offers plenty of new intrigue, NFL.com website. Accessed 4/27/07."
18. ''A Street of Dreams.''
19. (n.d.) [www.unicam.state.ne.us/bluebook/intro/history.pdf History: Earliest records]. State of Nebraska Unicameral.
20. Cutting the path to freedom. ''The Reader.''
21. Cutting the path.
22. Howard, A. M. (2006, Sep) The Omaha Black Panther Party and BANTU: Exploitation or a Relationship of Mutual Convenience Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, NA, Atlanta, GA.
23. (1992) ''A Street of Dreams.'' (VHS) Nebraska Public Television.
24. ''A Street of Dreams.''
25. Associated Press (Apr 25, 2005). For the Record. ''Lincoln Journal Star.'' Retrieved on 24 May 2006.
26. Schools Plan in Nebraska Is Challenged Sam Dillon
External links
★ Fast Facts about Omaha's African American community
★ Discover North Omaha website
★ Discover Black Omaha website
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