The Omaha Star building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Omaha, Nebraska, has a population about the size of Minneapolis, a little over 400,000, with a smaller percentage of African Americans, about 13 percent versus over 18 percent in Minneapolis.
Like Minneapolis, Omaha’s small and tight-knit Black community in the north side of town has managed to create and sustain some important institutions, most notably its African American newspaper the Omaha Star.
It was founded in 1938 by Mildred Brown and her husband S. Edward Gilbert. After Brown and Gilbert divorced in 1943, she ran the Omaha Star alone.
The building that has housed the Omaha Star since it was founded in 1938, where Mildred Brown also lived until her death in 1989, is now a national landmark. Brown’s niece Dr. Marguerita Washington now owns and operates the newspaper.
MSR Vice President Emeritus Norma Jean Williams recalls that her mother, the late MSR Publisher Launa Q. Newman, and Mildred Brown were “phone friends,” sister comrades who shared their struggles to operate and maintain two great institutions of the Black Press.
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During a recent weekend outing to Omaha, this reporter took an excursion into North Omaha to take note of some of its Black institutions and history. See photos below. All photos by Stephani Booker.
The George Bryant Basketball Center, located next to the Omaha Star, was opened in 1966 “after the civil unrest of that year,” according to the Omaha Public Schools’ Making Invisible Histories Visible website. The center was named after a prominent member of St. Benedict the Moor Parish, which donated the land where the center was built.
The George Bryant Basketball Center, located next to the Omaha Star, was opened in 1966 “after the civil unrest of that year,” according to the Omaha Public Schools’ Making Invisible Histories Visible website. The center was named after a prominent member of St. Benedict the Moor Parish, which donated the land where the center was built.
The Omaha Star building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Great Plains Black History Museum, founded in 1976, was closed in 2001 due to cuts in government funding. The museum board of directors is still working on reorganizing and getting funding to reopen the institution.
The Omaha Star building is on the National Register of Historic Places.
North Omaha’s St. Benedict the Moor Parish is the only historically African American Catholic church in Nebraska. The church is named after a 16th-century Italian son of African slaves who became a Franciscan friar.
The Omaha Association of Black Professional Firefighters is housed in an old firehouse in north Omaha, the center of its African American community.
The Great Plains Black History Museum, founded in 1976, was closed in 2001 due to cuts in government funding. The museum board of directors is still working on reorganizing and getting funding to reopen the institution.
