Culture of North Omaha, Nebraska

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Culture in North Omaha, Nebraska, the north end of Omaha, is defined by socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and political divisions among its residents.

Contents

[edit] Cultural events

North Omaha is home to several important annual events that help define and celebrate the community, its history, and its future. Native Omaha Days is a biennial North Omaha cultural tradition, reuniting members of the city's African American community. The Days are commemorated with a variety of events, including the Evergreen Reunion, named after a town in Alabama that many families in the area trace their roots to.[1] Other annual activities include the Juneteenth Parade, the Fort Omaha Intertribal Powwow, Omaha Blues, Jazz, & Gospel Festival[2], Florence Days, and the Omaha North High School Homecoming, including a parade for the community. The Stone Soul Picnic is also an important event.

[edit] Cultural institutions

North Omaha culture is regarded as being anchored, in large part, by The Omaha Star, which was founded by the late Mildred D. Brown in 1938. She is believed to be the first female, certainly the first African American woman, to have founded a newspaper in the nation's history. Today the Omaha Star a corner stone of Omaha's African American community, and the only African American newspaper in Nebraska. It has a circulation of more than 30,000.[3] [4].

John Beasley Theater is located in the Lake Point Building at 2401 Lake St. Suite 130. It is named after native Omaha actor John Beasley. The Theater's mission is, "To provide new educational opportunities for residents to experience and develop their interests and talents in theater, dance, music, poetry and writing."[5]

North Omaha is proud of its history as an important jazz community. Dreamland Plaza is located at 24th and Lizzie Robinson Streets, adjacent to the Dreamland Historical Project. The site of a recent $2 million investment by the city, it is now home to cultural activities throughout the year.[6] The Dreamland Historical Project is set on restoring North Omaha as a jazz center.[7] website. The Love’s Jazz & Art Center, located at 2510 North 24th Street, is a non-profit 501c3 dedicated to showcasing, collection, documentation, preservation, study and the dissemination of the history and culture of African Americans in the arts[8]. The Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame was established in 2005.

[edit] African American culture

The African American community in North Omaha was established late in the 1880s, as blacks from the South came to Omaha seeking economic opportunity and bright futures[9]. Many early African American residents of the city may have arrived on the Underground Railroad via a small log cabin outside of Nebraska City built by Allen Mayhew in 1855, and still standing today at the Mayhew Cabin Museum. 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."[10]

From the 1920s-50s North Omaha was a destination for African Americans during the Great Migration from the American South. An African American Renaissance flourished, part of a larger boom time in the Prohibition era. A late documentary reports, "On the surface the black community appeared quite stable. Its center was a several-block district north of the downtown. There were over a hundred black-owned businesses, and there were a number of black physicians, dentists, and attorneys. Over twenty fraternal organizations and clubs flourished, and the NAACP had a strong chapter. Church life was diverse. Of more than forty denominations, Methodists and Baptists predominated."[11]

[edit] Historical African American social clubs

The Black community in North Omaha was anchored with numerous important social clubs. According to one report from the 1930s, "There are today in Omaha alone some twenty-five clubs and societies with a total membership of over two thousand." These groups included the Pleasant Hour Club [which was estimated to be fifty years old when the publication was made in the late 1930s], Aloha Club, Entre Nous Club, the Beau Brummels Club, the Dames Club, the Jolly Twenty Club, the Trojan Club, and the Quack Club.[12] Important locations included the North Side YWCA, located in a house at 2306 N. 22nd Street was home to this influential organization starting in 1920.[13] Another important institution in the community was the Colored Old Folks' Home, organized in 1913 and purchased a building in 1923.

The Royal Circle was an African American social organization patterned after Ak-sar-ben, which did not permit African American members. The Royal Circle held annual colillions for African American young women through the early 1960s. Formed in 1918, the War Camp Community Service became the local American Legion the next year. The Centralized Commonwealth Civic Club, formed 1937, promoted community business, while two local Boy Scout troops (Troop 23, Troop 79) were explicity for African American youth. The community also boasted halls for Odd Fellows, the Masons, which had about 550 members in North Omaha in 1936, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, with about 250 members in the community in 1936.[14] Perhaps the most elusive organization in North Omaha was the Knights and Daughters of Tabor, also know as the "Knights of Liberty". This was a secret African American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery."[15]

The Negro Historical Society of the 1960s, formed by Bertha Calloway in the 1960s, eventually founded the Great Plains Black Museum in North Omaha. The Museum is located at 2213 Lake Street, and is home to Omaha's only African American history collection.

[edit] Historical African American entertainment venues

“ "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."[16] ”

From the 1920s through the early 1960s North Omaha boasted was a vibrant African American entertainment district. The most important venue was the storied Dreamland Ballroom, opened in the Jewell Building in 1923 at 24th and Grant Streets. 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. Whitney Young spoke there as well.[17]

Other venues included Jim Bell's Harlem, opened in 1935 on Lake Street, west of 24th; McGill's Blue Room, located at 24th and Lake, and; Allen's Showcase Lounge, which was located at 24th and Lake. Theaters in the community included the Diamond Moving Picture Theater, located at 24th and Lake. This theater was flattened in the Easter Sunday tornado of 1919[18]. The Ritz Theater was opened in the mid 1930s at 2041 N. 24th Street, near Patrick Avenue. It is included as an African-American theatre with seating for 548.[19]. North Omaha was the location of what may be the first African American film company ever. In 1915, George and Noble Johnson founded the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in the area to produce films for African American audiences. In less than a year they relocated to Los Angeles.[20]

In its later years the Ritz Theater was reportedly owned by the same man who owned several other entertainment venues in Omaha, including the Music Box bowling alley downtown. It was closed in the 1950s and has since been demolished. The Beacon Theater was located at 29th Street and Ames Avenue, and was demolished in the early 1970s[citation needed].

For fifty years, from 1900 through 1950, North Omaha and its main artery of 24th Street was the heart of the city's African-American cultural and business community with a thriving jazz and rhythm and blues scene that attracted top-flight swing, blues and jazz bands from across the country. Due to racial segregation, musicians such as Cab Calloway stayed at Myrtle Washington's at 22nd and Willis while others stayed at Charlie Trimble's at 22nd and Seward. Early North Omaha bands included Dan Desdunes Band, Simon Harrold's Melody Boys, the Sam Turner Orchestra, the Ted Adams Orchestra, the Omaha Night Owls, Red Perkins and His Original Dixie Ramblers, and the Lloyd Hunter Band who became the first Omaha band to record in 1931. A Lloyd Hunter concert poster can be seen on display at the Community Center in nearby Mineola, Iowa.[21]

The intersection of 24th and Lake was the setting of the Big Joe Williams song "Omaha Blues". 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 Fontennelle projects at 2213 Charles Street.[22]. According to one report, major occupations of African Americans in North Omaha in the 1940s and 50s included domestic work, working as porters, and working at local meat packing plants[23]. There were innumerable African American churches, social and civic clubs, formal dances for young people, and other cultural activities. Several accounts attribute the decline of the African American cultural scene in North Omaha to the riots of the 1960s and 70s. There has been a resurgence in interest in the historical period, particularly evidenced in the creation of Loves Center and the Dreamland Project.

[edit] Historical African American newspapers

North Omaha has also been home to several African American newspapers, including The Progress, the Afro-American Sentinel, the Enterprise, the Omaha Monitor and the Omaha Star. Founded in 1938, today the Omaha Star is Nebraska’s only black newspaper.

[edit] European immigrant and European American culture

From its start in the late 1800s, near North Omaha was the location of a mixed European immigrant community that mingled extensively with the African American community. The Jewish community in the area was rich, with several synagogues the provided social and cultural activities in the area. Similarly, Catholic parishes in the area welcomed Irish and German immigrants.[24]. Far North Omaha, near Florence, was home to an almost exclusively Scandinavian immigrant community. With a variety churches and social clubs, this neighborhood was a cultural center for many of North Omaha's working class and middle class whites. This trend started to reverse in the late 1960s, with the racial and economic demographics of the neighborhood rapidly changing in the 1990s and still today.

[edit] Racism

Further information: Civil Rights Movement in Omaha, Nebraska

North Omaha has a contentious history between whites and African Americans that is predicated on racism. From 1910 to 1920, the African American population of Omaha doubled from around 5,000 to 10,315. Those 10,000 blacks made up five percent of Omaha's population, and that rate of growth was alarming to Omaha's white population. White newspapers took note. During the first week of August 1919, the Omaha Bee newspaper reported that as many a 500 "Negro" workers, mostly from Chicago and East St. Louis, arrived in Omaha to seek employment in the packinghouses. The migration of African Americans to Omaha and the hiring of black workers created a source of friction in the local labor market, as there was at least one major strike among white workers happening in the area at the same time. Economic pressure exacerbated existing racial hostilities.

One Omaha newspaper recounted that 21 Omaha women reported that they were assaulted from early June to late September 1919. Twenty of the victims were white and 16 of the assailants were identified as black, in an example of yellow journalism. Only one of the victims was black. 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." [25] During the ensuing Omaha Race Riot of 1919 in September, white racists used one of these supposed attacks of a white woman by an African American man to loot, pillage, and otherwise demolish North Omaha's African American community. The white rioters lynched Willy Brown, an accused packinghouse worker, and soldiers from Fort Omaha were placed on guard at 24th and Lake streets in order "to prevent any further murders of black citizens. Orders were issued that any citizen with a gun faced immediate arrest. All blacks were ordered to remain indoors." [26] Later revelations associated this event with the infamous Red Summer of 1919. The legacy of this horrific event was the de facto racial segregation of Omaha neighborhoods, which effectively ended the ability of African Americans to buy, rent, or otherwise live outside of North Omaha. [27] Pressure by racists continued, as Malcolm X's mother reported a 1924 incident where her family was warned to leave Omaha by Ku Klux Klansmen. She was told that her unborn son's father's involvement with Universal Negro Improvement Association was, according to the Klansmen, "stirring up trouble".[28] The family moved shortly thereafter. [29]

Visits to Omaha by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1958 and Robert Kennedy in 1968 galvanized the civil rights movement in North Omaha, and leaders continued to struggle against racism. [30] However, North Omaha was marred by race-related violence and de facto segregation throughout the 20th century. This was accentuated in a 1970 incident when the Black Panthers were implicated in a police killing in North Omaha. The Rice/Poindexter Case continues to highlight Omaha's contentious and continuous legacy of racism. As a result, to this day a majority of Omaha's African American population is still found in North Omaha.

[edit] Race riots

North Omaha has been the site of several race riots. They started with the "white-on-black" violence of the 1919 riots surrounding the lynching of Willy Brown. From September 28 to September 29 European immigrants and European Americans riot through the community, searching for and celebrating the lynching of Brown. They riots were eventually quelled by the Army troops called in from Fort Omaha.

On July 5, 1966 troops return as the National Guard is called to stop three days of rioting among African Americans in North Omaha.[31] Three more three days of rioting occured in August of the same year.[32] In 1968 African Americans riot after a protest of George Wallace's presidential campaign visit to Omaha. During the protests police shoot an African American high school student. In 1969 riots erupt again after an Omaha police officer fatally shot teenager Vivian Strong in the back of the head near the Logan Fontenelle housing projects. The riots began after the judge at the preliminary hearing, Walter Cropper, found the shooter, Officer James Loder, not to be criminally accountable for the shooting. A contemporary report states, "Windows were broken and fires set in dozens of commercial buildings on and off Omaha’s 24th Street strip. The riot leapfrogged east to west, from 23rd to 24th, and south to north, from Clark to Lake." [33]

[edit] White flight

In the late 19th century near North Omaha, closer to the downtown core, was home to many working class, middle class, and upper class WASP and Jewish families. Numerous churches, synagogues, social and civic clubs, and other cultural activities from that time continue to this day, despite gravitating to West Omaha in several waves of white flight. For instance, the City of Omaha has remarked that Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church, "... reflects the change of North Omaha from an affluent white suburb to a black inner city neighborhood and the manner in which many area churches were established, changed ownership and merged."[34] Churches continued to illustrate racism, particularly evidenced in the 1966 film about segregation in Omaha entitled, A Time for Burning. North Omaha's working class, middle class, and upper class white history is evidenced in the architecture of many neighborhoods, several notable mansions, progressive apartment building designs, and other churches or former synagogues spread throughout the area. This is especially evident in the Kountze Park neighborhood, which is recognized as an area of historical importance for its architecture.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ (2005) 'The Days', The Omaha Reader.
  2. ^ (n.d.)OBJG Festival
  3. ^ (n.d.) The Omaha Star website
  4. ^ (n.d.) Mildred Brown - Founded the Omaha Star newspaper in 1938. Nebraska Studies.
  5. ^ (n.d.) Mission John Beasley Theater.
  6. ^ (n.d.)Jazz and All That OmahaBy Design.
  7. ^ Dreamland Omaha
  8. ^ Love's Jazz and Art Center website.
  9. ^ Roenfeld, R. (2005) From Whence We Came: A Historical View of African Americans in Omaha. Dreamland Historical Project.
  10. ^ (2003) The Negroes of Nebraska: Immigration
  11. ^ Taylor, Q (n.d.) History 313: The History of African Americans in the West Manual - Chapter 7: The Black Urban West, 1880-1940. University of Washington.
  12. ^ Nebraska Writers Project (n.d. est 1938) Negros in Nebraska Workers Progress Administration.
  13. ^ Roenfeld, R. (2005) From Whence We Came: A Historical View of African Americans in Omaha. Dreamland Historical Project.
  14. ^ Nebraska Writers Project
  15. ^ (n.d.) Moses Dickson
  16. ^ Preston Love describing the North Omaha jazz scene, as quote in McMahan, T. (2000) "Sharing the Love: An interview with Omaha Jazz great Preston Love." Lazy-I.com
  17. ^ (n.d.) Dreamland Ballroom City of Omaha.
  18. ^ (n.d)Easter Day tornado] picture
  19. ^ Ritz Theater Cinema Treasures.
  20. ^ (2007) African American History in the American West: Timeline. University of Washington.
  21. ^ Collins, T. (1994) Rock Mr. Blues: The Life & Music of Wynonie Harris. Big Nickel Publications.
  22. ^ Roenfeld, R. (2005) From Whence We Came: A Historical View of African Americans in Omaha. Dreamland Historical Project.
  23. ^ (1981) Project Prospect: A youth investigation of blacks buried at Prospect Cemetery Girls Club of Omaha
  24. ^ Street of Dreams Nebraska Public Television
  25. ^ (n.d.) "African American Migration," NebraskaStudies.Org
  26. ^ NebraskaStudies.Org (n.d.) Lesson Plans for Omaha Race Riot of 1919
  27. ^ HistoricOmaha.Com (n.d.) Omaha's Riot in Story and Picture - 1919
  28. ^ Malcolm X. (1992 reprint) The Autobiography of Malcom X.
  29. ^ Malcom X Timeline
  30. ^ (n.d.) Distilled in Black and White Omaha Reader.
  31. ^ (n.d.) National Guard Mobilized in North Omaha. Black Facts Online.
  32. ^ (n.d.)History 313: Manual - Chapter 9: Black Omaha: From Non-Violence to Black Power. University of Washington.
  33. ^ (n.d.) Distilled in Black and White Omaha Reader.
  34. ^ (n.d.) Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church (originally North Presbyterian Church) City of Omaha's Landmarks Heritage Preservation Commission.
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