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 1870s.
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 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 trial, 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.Bristow, D. (2002)
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,"A Street of Dreams," Nebraska Public Media. Air Date, 08/01/1994. Retrieved April 8, 2024. the civil rights movement in Omaha did not gain large-scale momentum until the 1920s.Bish, James D. (1989) The Black Experience in Selected Nebraska Counties, 1854–1920. M.A. Thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Early years With early 20th century growth in the number of African-American migrants recruited by the meatpacking industry, the population doubled from 1910 to 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."Preston Love reported seeing this sign repeatedly in Omaha cafes in the 1940s and 1950s in Bristow, D. (n.d.) Swingin' with Preston Love . Nebraska Life.
An early 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, Episcopal minister, Father John Albert Williams playing the role of first president.Omaha At a Glance, Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), Tuesday, June 17, 1919, Page: 12 At the national level, leadership and membership were integrated. The chapter has continued.(n.d.)Timeline: Omaha's 150th Birthday. KETV.com
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.
In 1927, the first chapter in the American West of the Urban League was founded in Omaha. The chapter was organized at a meeting of white and Black citizens at the Y.M.C.A. and its purpose was "the social and economic betterment of Negro residents and improved relationship between races.""Urban League Formed." Evening World-Herald 29 Nov. 1927: 2. Print. The Omaha Urban League (now the Urban League of Nebraska) has been led by many prominent African Americans, including Whitney M. Young Jr. and Thomas H. Warren Sr. Young quickly tripled the membership of the chapter during his tenure in the 1950s and would eventually lead the National Urban League during the civil rights movement. Warren previously served as the first African-American chief of police for the City of Omaha. The Urban League of Nebraska continues today.
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.Nebraska Writers Project (n.d. est 1938) Negroes in Nebraska Works Progress Administration. 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 Industrial Workers of the World in the 1920s. During the Depression of the 1930s, however, they suffered setbacks when major packinghouses closed.Larsen, L. and Cottrell, B.J. (1997) The Gate City: A History of Omaha.
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-American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."(n.d.) Moses Dickson
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.
Political representation Matthew Oliver Ricketts, elected from Omaha in 1892, was Nebraska's first African-American state legislator,Taylor, Q. (1998) In Search of the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West. W. W. Norton & Company. p 205. but no other Black state legislator was elected until 1926. In August 1906, Black members of the Omaha community formed a group called the "Progressive League of Douglas County", Williams president, to pressure the county Republicans to include Blacks on the legislative ticket, in particular Millard F. Singleton.Colored League Formed, Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), Tuesday, August 7, 1906 Page: 6 Eventually, North Omaha sent a succession of African Americans to the State Legislature between the 1920s and WWII, starting with John Andrew Singleton and Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1926, Dr. Aaron Manasses McMillan (elected in 1928) and followed by Johnny Owen. In the first Unicameral in 1937 John Adams Jr was elected (he served from 1935 to 1941) and was followed by his father, John Adams Sr, (served from 1949 until his death in 1962). Adams Sr was a noted minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. John A Singleton, John Adams Jr, John O. Wood, Andrew Stuart, and Harry Anderson formed the Consolidated Negro Political Organization in March 1933 in an effort to organize Black political activity in Omaha."Negro Club Endorses Hupkins' Candidacy"; Omaha World Herald; Sunday, March 12, 1933; page 4 Adams Jr was a lawyer who frequently was involved in Civil Rights cases and, as a legislator, introduced the state's first public housing law and supported other welfare legislation.McMorris, Robert, "Charter Member Once Opposed Unicameral", Omaha World Herald; Saturday, August 28, 1982; Page: 17-18
1947–1962
In 1947, a group of students developed the DePorres Club. Founded at Creighton University,(1992) A Street of Dreams. Nebraska ETV Network (video) 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.(n.d.)Mildred Brown Nebraska Studies.
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."Taylor, Q. (2007) The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed – Timeline. Seattle: University of Washington.
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., Nebraska State Historical Society. Retrieved 11/30/10.
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. 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 North 24th Street and Goodwin's Spencer Street Barbershop at 3116 N. 24th Street, where young Ernie Chambers was a barber."Cutting the path..." Other notable activists important to Omaha's African-American community during this period included Rowena Moore, Lois Mark Stalvey, and Bertha Calloway.