A 1939 pic shows a choir, instrumentalists and the Rev. In 1867, Black men gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, but a violent backlash soon restores white supremacy. Outraged Republican senators in the North intervened with “Radical Reconstruction,” passing laws to protect emancipated Blacks. Some 4 million former slaves are freed, but restrictive “Black codes” on labor and behavior are quickly passed in the South. The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as “punishment for a crime.” 1865-1877
1863Įmancipation Proclamation ended the practice of slavery in the Union, technically also applying to the rebellious Confederate states. There are conflicting reports of how many African Americans lived in the area at this time, 25 or 81. Methodist circuit preacher Moses Shinn begins selling his land, site of the modern-day Kellom neighborhood (Cuming to Hamilton, 27th to 29th Streets.) For the first 50 years, the neighborhood is populated primarily by White immigrants, including Russian, Eastern European Jewish and Scandinavian families and fewer Black families.
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Sally Bayne arrived in Omaha and is counted as the first free African American to settle in the Nebraska Territory. Nebraska Territory, May 1854 : Nebraska centennial, 1854-1954 : this map is the Nebraska section of the Nebraska Territory established May 1854 : authenticated by the Nebraska State Historical Society. Total population of the territory was 2,732 and encompassed areas of modern-day Nebraska, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Colorado, and Montana. 1854Ĭensus lists 13 African Americans, likely slaves, in Nebraska Territory. 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. The city of Omaha is informally established at a picnic by White claim-stakers from Council Bluffs in what has been Indian Country since 1700, on the site of present day Central High School. At The Reader we’ve tried to put together an extensive, but in no way exhaustive, list to show that the past is always informing the future. Their history is a catalogue of oppression, protest and small inches forward. In Omaha, Black Americans have long been the minority. They called for an end to police brutality, solutions for social inequality and, above all, change they could believe in. In Omaha, thousands demonstrated across the city. In 2020, the hoarse throats that have long called for racial justice had their calls answered and strengthened when protesters took to the streets across the United States.