Our adjustment to moving here from the Black Hills, SD, included my own first experiences with racism. Riots and burnings, marching and murder were the headlines those first few years. "The Education of a WASP" was the first book I encountered after we settled in. Omaha was not the quiet little Midwestern city I had imagined. It was frightful.
It very well could erupt with racial violence again, given the political, economic, and cultural situation today.
Not too many years ago I attended some Lay School Ministries sessions at Augustana Lutheran church on the edge of the black community known as the near north side. There I enjoyed a group of people that discussed topics of the day with someone knowledgeable about the particular topic. For instance we studied the Human Genome Theory when it was a theory. One of our discussion leaders was a medical ethicist from Creighton University Medical School.
A Time for Burning is in the Omaha news again. The film explored the attempt of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to neighboring black Lutherans. A Time for Burning, a 1967 Oscar-nominated documentary about the interactions between two segregated churches in Omaha, Nebraska, during the height of the civil rights movement, will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Monday Nights with Oscar" on Monday, October 20, at 8 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
The young black barber featured in the film, will be a part of the on-stage panel discussing it. Ernie Chambers, completed law school and was elected Senator to the Nebraska Legislature in 1970. By 2005 he had become the longest-serving state Senator in the history of Nebraska.
1925 Malcom X born in North Omaha.
- 1966 The documentary A Time for Burning is released and nominated for an Academy Award.
- 1966 On July 5 the National Guard is called to quell two days of rioting among African Americans in North Omaha.[17]
- 1968 Riots erupt in North Omaha in response to assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
- 1968 Robert Kennedy visits Omaha in his quest to become president.
- 1969 Riots erupt on June 24 after an Omaha police officer fatally shoots teenager Vivian Strong in the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects.[18]
- 1970 On August 17 a bombing occurs at a house at 2867 Ohio Street, killing one policeman. Black Panther members are implicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment