African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska
[3] Black people are first recorded arriving in the area that became the city when York came through in 1804 with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the residence of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who lived at Fort Lisa for an extended period in 1810.
While African Americans were already concentrated in North Omaha, in the 1930s redlining and race restrictive covenants reinforced their staying there without options for years to move to newer housing.
[14] The presence of several black people, probably slaves, was recorded in the area comprising North Omaha today when Major Stephen H. Long's expedition arrived at Fort Lisa in September 1819.
One report says, "Henry Daniel Smith, born in Maryland in 1835, still living in Omaha in 1913 and working at his trade of broom-maker, was one escaped slave who entered Nebraska via the Underground Railroad.
[26] George Wells Parker, a founder of the Afrocentric Hamitic League of the World, was instrumental in recruiting African Americans from the Deep South to Omaha during the 1910s.
[citation needed] The migration of African Americans to Omaha and the hiring of black workers created a source of friction in the local labor market.
After the mob finished with Brown, they turned against the entire population of African Americans in the Near North Side; however, their efforts were thwarted by soldiers from Fort Omaha.
Properties for rent and sale were restricted on the basis of race, with the primary intent of keeping the Near North Side "black" and the rest of the city "white".
With job losses and demographic changes accelerating in the late 1950s and 1960s, the project residents in North Omaha became nearly all poor and low-income African Americans.
African-American neighborhoods in Omaha have been studied extensively; the most notable reports include Lois Mark Stalvey's Three to Get Ready: The Education of a White Family in Inner City Schools,[32] and the 1966 documentary film A Time for Burning.
[citation needed] In 1892, Dr. Matthew Ricketts became the first African American elected to the Nebraska State Legislature, and was the acknowledged leader of the African-American community in Omaha.
[citation needed] No African Americans served on the Omaha City Council or Douglas County Board of Commissioners until district elections became law.
[citation needed] In 2005, Marlon Polk was appointed by Governor Dave Heineman to serve as a District Court Judge, the first African American to do so in Nebraska.
[42] In 1921, the Omaha and Council Bluffs Colored Ministerial Alliance demanded that Tom Dennison's cabarets in the Sporting District "wherein there is unwarranted mingling of the races" be closed indefinitely.
Sacred Heart Catholic Church has operated since the late 19th century and has evolved numerous times as different ethnic groups succeeded each other in the neighborhood.
Salem Baptist Church has been particularly important in the city's African-American community, hosting Martin Luther King Jr. in a major speaking event in Omaha in 1957.
Dreamland hosted some of the greatest jazz, blues, and swing performers, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, and the original Nat King Cole Trio.
Omaha-born Wynonie Harris, one of the founders of rock and roll, got his start at the North Omaha clubs, and for a time lived in the now-demolished Logan Fontenelle Housing Project.
Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been a resurgence in interest in this vibrant period, with cultural and historical institutions created to honor it, such as Love's Jazz & Art Center,[49] the Dreamland Project,[50] and the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame.
After leading the Cotton Club Boys and several smaller outfits, Winburn led the International Sweethearts of Rhythm to fame during World War II.
The best known and most widely read of all African-American newspapers in the city was the Omaha Monitor, established in 1915, edited and published by Reverend John Albert Williams.
In 1891 an African American George Smith was lynched at the Douglas County Courthouse, accused as a suspect for allegedly attacking a young girl.
A separate newspaper warned that vigilante committees would be formed if the "respectable colored population could not purge those from the Negro community who were assaulting white girls.
[48] Introduced in the 1930s, the practices of redlining by banks and racially restrictive housing covenants effectively ended for decades the ability of African Americans to buy or rent outside North Omaha.
[72] Starting in 1920, the Colored Commercial Club organized to help blacks in Omaha secure employment and to encourage business enterprises among African Americans.
[84] On March 4, 1968, a crowd of high school and university students were gathered at the Omaha Civic Auditorium to protest the presidential campaign of George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama.
An African-American youth was shot and killed by a police officer during the melee, and fleeing students caused thousands of dollars of damage to businesses and cars.
[85] The following day a local barber named Ernie Chambers helped calm a disturbance and prevent a riot by students at Horace Mann Junior High School.
The effects of these riots is still evident in the North 24th Street district, with high numbers of vacant lots and general economic depression still prevalent.
It includes material related to the history of black homesteaders on the plains, as well as the more numerous urbanites based chiefly in Omaha, the major city of the state.
