For this month’s #ChronAmParty, we are looking at some of Nebraska’s Black newspapers, the Omaha Monitor, the Omaha Guide, and Lincoln’s The Voice, along with one of our newly digitized papers, The Powder Keg.
The earliest of these papers is The Monitor (later Omaha Monitor), which ran 1915-1928. In an era when most papers had little in the way of photography or illustrations, The Monitor featured some of Omaha’s well-known Black citizens, with large photographs prominently displayed on the front page.
In 1915, the paper spoke out against the showing of the racist film Birth of a Nation in Omaha: “The Birth of a Nation,” a powerful photo play, based upon Dixon’s pernicious prejudice-breeding book, The Clansman, has been engaged for “an indefinite run” at the Brandeis theater, this city. The engagement, unless it is prevented, is to begin Sunday, November 14. The press agent states that “this picture has created a furore wherever it has been staged,” which is undoubtedly true.
The Monitor was published and edited by John Albert Williams, a nationally known African American Episcopal priest who was also a civil rights activist. Following an anti-lynching lecture by Ida B. Wells in Omaha in 1894, Williams founded the Omaha Anti-Lynching League and served as its president.
In 1921, the paper soberly covered the Tulsa Massacre and the threat of lynching. The Monitor started a relief fund for Tulsa riot victims, noting that many had been injured in the rioting and that Tulsa pastors were pleading for disarmament. (See The Monitor, June 16, 1921, among others.)
The Omaha Guide (1927-1958) also fought against lynchings, both extrajudicial and judicial. In 1932, the article entitled “Judicial Lynchings” declared, “Unequal justice in the courts toward Negroes is nothing new, and that the nation’s highest court realizes that if the local courts are swayed by the mob in matter of life, in time they will not protect property or maintain authority.” (Omaha Guide, September 10, 1932)
Another 1932 issue reported survey results on industrial and business conditions in Omaha and discussed the diaspora of Southern Blacks migrating to Omaha in two waves—first to take jobs with the Union Pacific Rail Road and second to work in industrial jobs, including packing houses in the South Omaha stockyards.
In addition to its hard news coverage, The Guide also featured coverage of the many performances at the well-known and popular dance hall The Dreamland, which was located in North Omaha’s Jewell Building. Among celebrities performing there and mentioned in the paper were Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole and many others.
In Lincoln, The Voice ran from October 11, 1946 through May 14, 1953. It was “dedicated to the promotion of the culture, social and spiritual life of a great people.” Melvin L. Shakespeare, a local pastor, was the publisher and owner. Two “special writers” were named in the masthead—Joseph Casmer and Rev. Trago T. McWilliams, Sr., for whom Lincoln’s Trago Park, located adjacent to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s City Campus, was named. The paper frequently reported on the National Urban League and the NAACP. On its Social page, the paper offered household hints and its Fashion-Of-Week column, where you can see ordinary and famous women posing in the latest fashions from the 1940s and 1950s.
The Guide covered World War II news from Omaha, such as its report on December 13, 1941, entitled “Negro Patriots Try to Enlist in the United States Navy Corps.” According to the article, the Omaha recruiting office told African Americans that there was “no place where Negroes could be used in the Navy at that time since the Negro jobs in the mess section had already been filled.” The Powder Keg was busy covering the War from one of the places where Black sailors could serve – the Naval Ammunition Depot just outside of Hastings, Nebraska. Approximately 1,600 Black sailors, and many more Black civilian laborers, worked at the plant. While the depot and the city of Hastings were both officially segregated, news in the Powder Keg suggests that the lines were not strictly enforced, as seen in this sports team image (“Champ Cagers,” The Powder Keg, February 4, 1944). Read more about segregation in sports at the Library of Congress.
