North Omaha, Nebraska
Important landmarks in the community include the Bank of Florence, Prospect Hill Cemetery and the Fort Omaha Historical District.
The Expo featured many events in the community, including performances by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at the Omaha Driving Park, where it was founded several years prior.
[12] It was home to such important locations at the Dreamland Ballroom, and fostered a variety of social and political developments, including the founding of the Hamitic League of the World.
The early years of noted Harlem Renaissance writer Wallace Thurman were spent in the Near North Side,[13] and Jewish feminist author Tillie Olsen grew up in the neighborhood.
[15] A 1966 documentary film entitled A Time for Burning highlighted the racial tension which had been driving white flight from the community for the two previous decades.
A barber who later earned a law degree, in 1970 Chambers started his service as the longest serving State Senator in the history of Nebraska.
[16] That year's Rice/Poindexter Case proved controversial as two leaders of Omaha's Black Panther Party were sentenced to life in prison for bombing a house in which a policeman was killed.
They include Jewish-American author Tillie Olsen, who was a labor organizer in a packinghouse and wrote about women and the poor working class; Whitney Young, an important civil rights leader and later national director of the Urban League; the Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers; actor John Beasley; and actress Gabrielle Union.
Singer Wynonie Harris, saxophonist Preston Love, Jack Coleman Jr., and drummer Buddy Miles all called North Omaha home.
The community was also the native home of several sports stars, including Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, football player Johnny Rodgers, Pro Football Hall of Famer, Chicago Bears Gale Sayers, Houston Texans starting running back Ahman Green, Former lightweight, Former unified Super lightweight and current WBO welterweight champion Terence Crawford and basketball player Bob Boozer.
[24] Despite positive activities directed at improving North Omaha over the years, including those listed above, local media tend to focus on dramatic stories of racial and economic strife within the community.
"[26] There have been a number of distinct events throughout the history of North Omaha that were caused by racial tension between African Americans and Caucasians throughout the city.
Omaha had events in common with other high-growth, major industrial cities that attracted many new immigrants and migrants, including lynchings and a race riot in 1919, a period known as Red Summer because of riots of whites against blacks in numerous cities across the country, due to social tensions after World War I, including competition for jobs and housing.
The early phase of the civil rights movement in North Omaha goes back to at least 1912, when residents founded a local chapter of the newly established National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
In the 1940s student and youth activism in North Omaha led to the creation of two unique groups: Creighton University's DePorres Club, started in 1947, and the Black Association for Nationalism Through Unity (BANTU), popular through the 1960s.
In the summer of 1963, the Citizens Civic Committee for Civil Liberties rallied to demand change and equal rights for all African Americans in Omaha.
[28] From the film A Time for Burning to Senator Ernie Chambers' recent legislative action, the civil rights movement has had a significant legacy in Omaha.
North Omaha has a range of important community-based organizations and government programs conducting community development, educational assistance and low-income housing.
The PCH plan will serve as a template for other development projects to follow, providing homes which are good for the consumer-friendly and the environmentally conscious.
BEARS is an acronym which stands for Building Esteem and Responsibility Systematically and the program combines sports with academics and social enhancement.
He said, "North Omaha used to be a hub for black jazz musicians, 'the triple-A league' where national bands would go to find a player to fill out their ensemble.
As the leader of North Omaha's Cotton Club Boys, which included guitarist Charlie Christian,[52] Winburn traveled the local region as a typical territorial band.
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.
Born in North Omaha, she went on to write songs and sing backup with such legends as Chaka Khan, Rufus, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin.
The Days are commemorated with a variety of events, including the Evergreen Reunion, named after a town in Alabama from where many families' ancestors migrated.
With its long history of migration from other regions and immigration from other countries, North Omaha has developed a rich religious tapestry representing the range of faith in Nebraska today.
The diversity includes its Mormon roots in Florence, as well as the historic locations of Jewish synagogues established by European immigrants in the Near North Side.
North 24th was addressed as Omaha's "Street of Dreams" because of the prosperity and hope it embodied for its early African American, Eastern European and Jewish residents.
General John J. Pershing Drive was named after the successful World War I U.S. Army leader, and flows from East Omaha north by Florence, by the historic site of Fort Lisa and towards Blair.
In successive generations the area has been home to Irish, German, Jewish, Lithuanian and other European immigrants, as well as African-American migrants from across the Southeast.
