Timeline of racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska

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Main article: Racial Tension in Omaha, Nebraska
Further information: Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska

The timeline of racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska highlights an local history of racism that predates the founding of the city and continues to this day. This timeline includes bigotry, mob violence and institutional racism, such as redlining and restrictive covenants. Many "firsts" are included as well, due to the contentious nature of racism in America.

Contents

[edit] Timeline

  • 1804 - The first recorded instance of a black person in the Omaha area is "York", who arrives in Omaha area as a slave of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
  • 1854 - The Omaha Tribe sells the majority of its tribal land, four million acres (16,000 km²), to the United States for less than 22 cents an acre.[1]
  • 1854 - Nebraska Territory created with condition that the area stay slave-free
  • 1855 - Ongoing debate occurs in the early Territorial Legislature regarding slavery.[2]
  • 1859 - "The bill introduced in [Omaha City] Council, for the abolition of slavery in this Territory, was called up yesterday, and its further consideration postponed for two weeks. A strong effort will be made among the Republicans to secure its passage; we think, however, it will fail. The farce certainly cannot be enacted if the Democrats do their duty. - From an 1859 Daily Nebraskian newspaper.[3]
  • 1860 - The Omaha-based Nebraskian newspaper quotes the Chicago Times and Herald regarding a slave named "Eliza" who ran away from an Omaha businessman to Chicago, and was arrested there.
  • 1860 - Census shows 81 Negroes in Nebraska, 10 of whom were slaves.[4]
  • 1865 - A clause in the original proposed Nebraska State Constitution limited voting rights in the state to "free white males". This kept Nebraska from entering the Union for almost a year.
  • 1867 - St. John's African Methodist Episcopal Church organizes as the first church for African Americans in Nebraska.[5]
  • 1872 - William Leper is born this year, the first recorded birth of an African American in Omaha.[6]
  • 1876 - Standing Bear v. Crook, held at Fort Omaha, recognizes American Indians as persons in the U.S. Federal Court.[7]
  • 1890 - A Dr. Stephenson comes to Omaha, becoming the first black physician in the city.[8]
  • 1891 - A man called Joe Coe, an African American worker, is lynched by a mob for supposedly raping a "white" woman. There was no trial, and no one was convicted of a crime.[9]
  • 1892 - Dr. Matthew Ricketts elected as the first African American in the Nebraska State Legislature.
  • 1894 - The first African American fair ever held in the United States takes place in Omaha in July. [10]
  • 1909 - Greek Town, a successful Greek immigrant community in South Omaha is burnt to the ground and its residents are forced to leave town by a mob.
  • 1910 - African Americans build an "Old Colored Folks Home" in North Omaha.[11]
  • 1912 - Omaha chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People opens.[12]
  • 1917 - George Wells Parker founds the Hamitic League of the World in Omaha.
  • 1919 - Willy Brown is lynched after a mob almost burns down the Douglas County Courthouse to get him.
  • 1930s - As veterans from World War I attempt to return to their civilian jobs, violent strikes break out in the South Omaha meat packing industry when they discover African American and Eastern European immigrants in their former positions.
  • 1918 - Cyril Briggs becomes editor of the African Blood Brotherhood journal, The Crusader, which is printed and distributed in Omaha.
  • 1919 - African-American Willy Brown is lynched after being accused of raping a white woman. The mayor is the only city official to intervene, and he is lynched by the mob; only a last minute rescue saves his life. No trial or convictions occur.[13]
  • 1920s - Racial segregation becomes normalized as redlining and restrictive covenants keep African Americans in North Omaha. Harry Haywood is said to have become radicalized by the white mob rule that overtook Omaha in the 1920s, which drove him to become a leader of the Communist Party of America. The National Federation of Colored Women had five chapters in North Omaha, actively conducting a variety of social, political and charitable work throughout the city of Omaha.[14]
  • 1920 - the Colored Commercial Club organizes to help blacks secure employment and to encourage business enterprises among African Americans in Omaha.
  • 1921 - Violent strikes again occur in the South Omaha meatpacking plants resultant from the African American and Eastern European laborers presence.
  • 1921 - Earl Little, Malcolm X's father, founds the Omaha chapter of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association.
  • 1925 - Malcolm X born in Omaha.
  • 1926 - Malcolm X's family forced to move from their home in North Omaha by the Ku Klux Klan.
  • 1928 - The Urban League of Nebraska, the first chapter of the national organization founded in the American West, founded[15]
  • 1929 - Whitney Young leads the Urban League in Omaha to triple its membership.[16]
  • 1930s - The Knights and Daughters of Tabor, also know as the "Knights of Liberty", was founded in Omaha in this decade as a secret African American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."[17]
  • 1938 - Mildred Brown founds the Omaha Star, likely becoming the first woman, and definitely the first African American woman to found a newspaper in the U.S. The paper, which celebrates African American contributions and successes in Omaha and America, is the only newspaper for African Americans in Nebraska.
  • 1942 - Alfonza W. Davis fights with the segregated Tuskegee Airmen. He is presumed KIA when his aircraft disappears in 1944.
  • 1947 - The DePorres Club begins at Creighton University[18], actively seeking to fight racial discrimination in Omaha's housing and job markets.
  • 1948 - The DePorres Club is forced to meet at the offices of the Omaha Star after being kicked off of Creighton's campus.[19]
  • 1950s - "We Don't Serve Any Colored Race." - Signs occur in cafe windows throughout the city.[20]
  • 1958 - A group of African American educators in Omaha Public Schools starts a professional caucus called Concerned and Caring Educators.
  • 1958 - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Salem Baptist Church in North Omaha.
  • 1963 - The Citizens Civic Committee for Civil Liberties, or 4CL, led by Black ministers, rallies to demand change civil rights for all African Americans throughout Omaha through picketing, stand-ins during city council meetings and other efforts.[21]
  • 1963 - The Omaha Human Rights Commission is created, holding a rally of more than 10,000 people later in the year. However, organizations such as 4CL saw this Commission, led by Omaha's mayor, as a stalling tactic.[22]
  • 1963 - Black Association for Nationalism Through Unity (BANTU) founded in Omaha to rally high school student activists towards action.[23]
  • 1964 - Malcolm X speaks in Omaha.[24]
  • 1962 - North Omaha citizen Bertha Galloway forms the Negro History Society.
  • 1966 - National Guard quells two days of rioting in North Omaha in July.[25]
  • 1966 - A Time for Burning, a documentary featuring North Omaha, filmed. Later that year it is nominated for an Oscar.
  • 1968 - National Guard again quells North Omaha riots in April after the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
  • 1968 - Robert Kennedy visits North Omaha in his quest to become president, speaking in support of Omaha's civil rights activists.
  • 1968 - Marlin Briscoe of Omaha becomes the first black quarterback in the American Football League.
  • 1969 - Riots erupt in June after an Omaha police officer fatally shoots teenager Vivian Strong in the Logan Fontenelle Public Housing Projects.[26]
  • 1970s - Construction of the North Freeway dissects North Omaha, effectively cutting the African American community in half.
  • 1970 - Ernie Chambers elected to Nebraska State Legislature.
  • 1970 - On August 17 an Omaha police officer is killed when an explosive blows up in an abandoned house in North Omaha. August 28 an African American man named Duane Peak is arrested, and implicates six others. August 31 David Rice and Ed Poindexter are arrested, despite not being originally implicated.
  • 1971 - Rice and Poindexter convicted of murder in the controversial Rice/Poindexter Case.
  • 1974 - Retrial of Rice and Poindexter denied by the Nebraska State Supreme Court.
  • 1976 - Omaha Public Schools begins court-ordered integrated busing.[27]
  • 1976 - Negro History Society formally opens the Great Plains Black History Museum to celebrate African American contributions to the city and region.
  • 1981 - Arsonists blaze an East Omaha duplex after an African American family signs a rental agreement there. The arson is unsolved.[28]
  • 1993 - Multiple times since this year the Nebraska Parole Board votes unanimously and repeatedly to commute Rice and Poindexter's sentences to time served; however, the Nebraska Board of Pardons refuses to schedule a hearing in the matter.
  • 1995 - Arsonists tip over and blaze an African American woman's car in East Omaha at the same location of the 1981 arson. Both cases are unsolved.[29]
  • 1996 - Omaha Public Schools ends court-ordered busing.[30]
  • 1996 - "One resident of Rose Garden Estates near 172nd and Pacific Streets said privately, for instance, that he finds the prospect of being incorporated into the city 'increasingly scary.' 'I left Benson because I didn't like the changes,' he said. 'Too much crime, too much racial tension, too much school busing. I went to the suburbs to get away from that, and now I'm being forced back in.' The man, an insurance company employee, denied that his problems were based on race, but he asked that this part of the interview be anonymous."[31]
  • 1997 - Marvin Ammons, an African American Gulf War veteran, is shot and killed by an Omaha police officer. A grand jury indicts the officer for manslaughter, then the judgment was thrown out for jury misconduct. A second grand jury acquits the offer of wrongdoing and admonishes the Omaha police department for mishandling the case.
  • 2000 - George Bibbins, an African American who leads Omaha police on a high speed chase, is shot and killed by officers at the end of the chase. A grand jury later acquits the accused officers.
  • 2000 - Nebraska State Legislature sets term limits, with many suspecting this action to be targeted at Ernie Chambers.[32]
  • 2002 - City of Omaha installs the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Cornerstone Memorial at the NW corner of 24th & Lake Streets.
  • 2003 - Native Omahan Thomas Warren became the city’s first African American police chief.
  • 2003 - An African American gang member shoots Jason Tye Pratt, an Omaha police officer. US Attorney General John Ashcroft visits his wife and admonishes a Douglas County District Judge for offering the gang member second chances in past offenses.
  • 2004 - Omaha police officer Tariq Al-Amin is fired from the police department for comments he made during a television show. He appeals and is reinstated with the maximum penalty allowed by police union contract, along with an apology for his comment.
  • 2005 - Ernie Chambers becomes longest-serving State Senator in Nebraska history.
  • 2006 - Ernie Chambers proposes separating Omaha Public Schools into three districts that reflect the city's racial composition: one for the predominately white western part of Omaha, one for the predominately Hispanic South Omaha, and one for predominately black North Omaha.[33] The Nebraska State Legislature approves the plan to be implemented in 2008. The NAACP is challenging the law with the US Supreme Court.
  • 2006 - City of Omaha Safety Auditor Tristan Bonn submits a report which detailed Omaha Police Department officers' aggressive, rude and unwarranted traffic stops, which involved African Americans and other people of color.[34] Bonn's report detailed five incidents, which occurred throughout her six years in office. Bonn presented no statistical evidence to back up her claims of aggression, rudeness and unwarranted stops. In October, Bonn is fired by the Mayor of Omaha, Mike Fahey, as he calls Bonn "insubordinate".[35]
  • 2007 - In February unknown assailants robbed, firebombed, and spray painted a racist epiphet on the side of an East Omaha grocery store owned by an Ethiopian immigrant. The crime is unsolved.[36]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ (n.d.) Multiethnic Guide. Greater Omaha Economic Partnership.
  2. ^ Bristow, D. (2002) A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tale of 19th Century Omaha. Caxton Press.
  3. ^ A Daily Nebraskian newspaper editorial from 1859, as quoted in Bristow, D. (2002) A Dirty, Wicked Town: Tale of 19th Century Omaha. Caxton Press.
  4. ^ (1938) Authur Goodlett. American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940.
  5. ^ (2003) The Negroes of Nebraska: The Negro goes to church. Memorial Library.
  6. ^ (1895) "Negroes in Omaha," Omaha Progress February 21, 1895.
  7. ^ Bristow, D. (2002)
  8. ^ (1895) Omaha Progress
  9. ^ Bristow, D. (2002)
  10. ^ Nebraska Writers Project (1938) Negros in Nebraska Workers Progress Administration.
  11. ^ (1936) Henry Black: Life Histories from the Folklore Project, WPA Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940; American Memory. U.S. Library of Congress.
  12. ^ (n.d.)Timeline: Omaha's 150th Birthday. KETV.com
  13. ^ A Street of Dreams Nebraska Public Television.
  14. ^ Nebraska Writers Project (1938) "Negroes in Nebraska. Workers Progress Administration.
  15. ^ (2007) African American History in the American West: Timeline. University of Washington.
  16. ^ (2007) Our History Urban League of Nebraska.
  17. ^ (n.d.) Moses Dickson
  18. ^ (1992) A Street of Dreams. Nebraska ETV Network (video)
  19. ^ (n.d.)Mildred Brown Nebraska Studies.
  20. ^ Preston Love reported seeing this sign repeatedly in Omaha cafes in the 1950s in Bristow, D. (n.d.) Swingin' with Preston Love. Nebraska Life.
  21. ^ A Street of Dreams.
  22. ^ Cutting the path to freedom. The Reader.
  23. ^ 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.
  24. ^ Cutting the path...
  25. ^ (n.d.) National Guard Mobilized in North Omaha. Black Facts Online.
  26. ^ (n.d.) Distilled in Black and White Omaha Reader.
  27. ^ 1954-1979. Omaha World Herald (Nebraska) June 13, 2004
  28. ^ Burbach, C. "Robbery, fire evoke memories of neighborhood's racist past," Omaha World Herald. February 26, 2007.
  29. ^ Burbach, C. "Robbery, fire evoke memories of neighborhood's racist past," Omaha World Herald. February 26, 2007.
  30. ^ Omaha World Herald, June 13, 2004
  31. ^ Freed, K. "The Lure of the Suburbs: Do City Problems Grow With Growth?" Omaha World Herald. August 7, 1996. - Article also notes other similar instances.
  32. ^ Associated Press (Apr 25, 2005). For the Record. Lincoln Journal Star. Retrieved on 24 May 2006.
  33. ^ Saunders, Michaela. Chambers up close A Q&A with the senator, whose OPS views are rooted in his youth. Omaha World Herald (April 30, 2006))
  34. ^ (2006) Safety Auditor Criticizes Police Department Tristan Bonn's Report Outlines 'Rude' Behavior. KETV.com, 10/23/06. Retrieved 5/11/07.
  35. ^ (2006) Public Safety Auditor Terminated: Tristan Bonn Told She Was Insubordinate. KETV.com, 10/30/06. Retrieved 5/11/07.
  36. ^ Burbach, C. (2007)

[edit] External links


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Ethnic groups in Omaha, Nebraska
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RelatedRacial tension in Omaha, Nebraska  · Timeline of racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska  · Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska  · Omaha Race Riot of 1919  · Greek Town Riot  · DePorres Club  · A Time for Burning  · History of slavery in Nebraska  · Public school controversy  · Meyer v. Nebraska  · Little Bohemia  · Little Italy  · Sheelytown
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