African-American history of Nebraska

With history in Nebraska from the Lewis and Clark Expedition through the Civil War, emancipation, the Reconstruction era, resurgence of white supremacy with the Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow Laws, the Civil Right movement, into current times, African Americans have contributed vastly to the economics, culture, and substance of the state.

The first recorded Black person in Nebraska was York (1770–75 – after 1815), an explorer who was enslaved by William Clark and traveled on the Missouri River with the expedition.

Later, the cities of Valentine, Grand Island, North Platte, Beatrice, and Alliance all had numbers of Black people living there.

For instance, after living there for more than 50 years, the Black community of more than 200 residents in North Platte was violently forced to leave the city in 1929.

After being an Underground Railroad conductor in Chicago, he moved to Omaha, where he led the establishment of the National Afro-American League and a Nebraska branch of the same organization.

[22] In 1897 and 1898, Edwin Overall organized a Congress of White and Colored Americans to be held in Omaha during the Trans-Mississippi Exposition which took place from June 1 to November 1, 1898.

Dr. John Albert Williams and Cyrus D. Bell to bring a convention of the National Colored Personal Liberty League led by Henry Clay Hawkings to Omaha August 17, 1898, during the Expo.

[24] Nebraska Governor Holcomb and Mayor Moores welcomed those in attendance, and Cyrus Bell and J. C. Parker of Omaha and D. Augustus Stroker, J. Milton Turner, and Dr. Crossland played prominent roles as well with P. G. Lowery supplying music.

Other leaders at the meeting were J. O. Adams, Price Saunders, E. S. Clemens, Cyrus D. Bell, W. B. Walker, Parker, Alfred S. Barnett, W. G. Woodbey, F. Lewis, Dr. Stephens, Alfonso Wilson, Fed Thomas, Silas Robbins, and Dr. Matthew Ricketts.

While Adams supported Overall, Ricketts, Walker, and Bell loudly opposed Overall's domination of the writing of the constitution.

Ricketts initially opposed the idea that whites could be allowed in the league, fearing they could dominate it, but Walker supported that clause convincingly.

[33] The "most prominent colored citizens" of Omaha formed the Afro-American Civil Rights Club in July 1892.

John Albert Williams started an effort to create the Omaha Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

An Afro-centric organization focused on Black history, it published a pamphlet in 1918 called Children of the Sun that was widely recognized.

In the 1920s, the Baptist minister Earl Little and his wife Louise Little established an Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, or UNIA.

Nebraska's most notable African American son is Malcolm X, who was born in 1926 in North Omaha and lived there for a short time before his family moved.

[35][36] Reared in Omaha, Clarence W. Wigington was the first black architect to design a home in Nebraska as a student of Thomas Rogers Kimball.

[37] Today, one of the primary locations on the Underground Railroad in Nebraska is preserved as the Mayhew Cabin Museum.

[38] Since 2012, the National Park Service has identified more than a dozen sites in Nebraska for their "Network to Freedom" program.

According to their website, "For the past 40 years, the Great Plains Black History Museum has been an important institution dedicated to publicizing and preserving the achievements of the region's vibrant African American heritage.