History shouldn’t just be about dates, names, and the dusty hoarding of facts. It’s actually an active conversation between the past and the present, a dialogue, a process of sifting through what’s been forgotten, neglected, and denied to understand who we are today. That’s the core belief behind my NorthOmahaHistory.com project.

The late historian E.H. Carr wrote that history is an “unending dialogue between the present and the past.” He argued that a historian shouldn’t just collect facts like a hoarder stacking piles in their house. Instead, we choose which facts to bring forward, which stories to tell. This isn’t a flaw in history—it’s the very nature of it. This project we share, NorthOmahaHistory.com, isn’t a museum with stagnant artifacts behind glass or piles of ephemera waiting to be seen. Instead, I try to create living testaments to the idea that we can build authority, ability and excitement through knowledge.

Through my project, I am intentionally choosing to highlight the stories of North Omaha that have been marginalized and ignored. I am seeking out the triumphs, the struggles, and the quiet lives of the people who built this community. In this way, I’m trying to increase the community’s power through North Omaha’s history.

Not a Tourist or a Missionary

My work on NorthOmahaHistory.com is more than just a historical project; it’s a deeply personal mission. As a white Canadian immigrant, I found a home in North Omaha with people who raised me right, even as I navigated a my own past of poverty, homelessness, and a lifetime of professional struggles. My lived experiences make the stories of resilience and hardship I uncover in the community’s history even more powerful to me.

I am absolutely aware that my struggles are not the same as those faced throughout the community because of white supremacy and systemic racism. I am not an insider and I am not exceptional. However, I have been welcomed. In a world that often overlooks those on the margins, I’ve found a “professional home” for this project by creating one myself—a direct challenge to the systems that ignore and “mis-educate” African Americans, poor people, the undereducated, many other people of color, and everyone else seen as “The Other” by mainstream society. My project is my way of using my position to share the voice of the voiceless. By documenting North Omaha’s history, I am not just trying to recover, preserve, and advocate for the past; I am struggling to work in partnership with the community to empower its present and build a more just future for all of us.

A Shared Mission: History as Empowerment

That’s why I have a deeper, more profound connection to the work of Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), the visionary historian and educator who is rightfully known as the “Father of Black History.” Reading Woodson taught me that by doing this project, I wouldn’t just be doing academic activities and brainy stuff, but actively engaging with my own moral imperative to build power with the powerless, where I came from. Woodson dedicated his life to countering the deliberate omission of Black people from the historical record, a process he called the “mis-education” of the Negro. He would say that my project is a direct answer to his call for a history that empowers.

Woodson’s core belief was that accurately understanding our past is essential for building positive identity and fostering a sense of collective purpose. I hope he would appreciate my vision of exposing the “hidden, neglected, denied, lost and forgotten” history of North Omaha. Woodson called this “historical reclamation,” and said it was a necessary step in correcting the widespread narrative that has long denied Black communities their due.

For too long, the realities of North Omaha have been shaped from the outside in, shaped by negative stereotypes. My mission is to help correct that by reclaiming our narrative. It’s about understanding the resilience of a people who faced systemic racism, redlining, and urban renewal projects that tore through their neighborhoods and displaced families. It’s about celebrating the vibrant culture, the influential organizations and businesses, and the powerful voices that have always been a part of the community.

Our Work Ahead

The challenges are real:

• Collecting the Past: Much of North Omaha’s history is not neatly filed away in archives; it lives in oral traditions, old photographs, and the memories of our elders. A past “history harvest” left a poor record of making the community’s artifacts available and accessible to the public, leaving a bad taste in some peoples’ mouths.
• Beyond Entertainment: At best, white Omahans seem mostly concerned with Black history that’s entertained them specifically, leading to the biographies of African American entertainers and athletes being revered over all other North Omaha history.
• Historical Exclusion: While the renewed focus on Black history in North Omaha is a vital correction for past neglect, equating the area’s history with Black history alone can, ironically, marginalize the stories of people who aren’t Black. North Omaha’s full history includes the narratives of Native American tribes, Mormon pioneers, and European immigrants, as well as its more recent past.
• Owning History: For too long, North Omaha’s rich and complex history has been fragmented. A variety of organizations and projects have unfairly “owned” history by narrating single-focused, incomplete versions of the past. There is seemingly no collective, integrated, interconnected, interdependent and entwined narrative encompassing all of North Omaha’s history and its impacts.

Running NorthOmahaHistory.com, including researching, writing, promoting, advocating, educating, and allying throughout the community, has been a constant process of discovery—listening to stories, poring over old newspapers, and piecing together a past that was forgotten, denied, neglected and abandoned for decades.

This project is a labor of love for me, a personal commitment to my community. I don’t make money operating it. And it’s not just about documenting what was, but about using the past to inspire a better future. When we understand where we came from, we are better equipped to navigate where we are going. By giving North Omaha a louder voice and a more prominent place in the historical record, I have tried to help the community build a greater sense of pride and belonging for generations to come.

In essence, Carr’s philosophy provides the methodology for my work—the idea of an active dialogue between the historian and the facts. But it is Woodson’s vision that provides the purpose—the deep-seated belief that by understanding our history, we can build a more just and dignified future. My work is an effort to do both, creating a history that is not only accurate and well-researched but also meaningful and empowering for the community it serves.

Thanks to A’Jamal Byndon of the Movement in Omaha for Racial Equity (MORE) for inspiring this post!

Special thanks to Mishaela Duran for inspiring this post.

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• About NorthOmahaHistory.com
• About Adam Fletcher Sasse
• MY North Omaha History

BASICS OF NORTH OMAHA HISTORY
Intro: Part 1: Before 1885 | Part 2: 1885-1945 | Timeline
People: People | Leaders | Native Americans | African Americans | Jews | Scandinavians | Italians | Chinese | Hungarians
Places: Oldest Places | Hospitals | Schools | Parks | Streets | Houses | Apartments | Neighborhoods | Bakeries | Industries | Restaurants | Churches | Oldest Houses | Higher Education | Boulevards | Railroads | Banks | Theaters |
Events: Native Omaha Days | Stone Soul Picnic | Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition | Greater Omaha Exposition | Congress of White and Black Americans | Harlem Renaissance | Riots
Related Topics: Focus Areas | National Register of Historic Places | Architecture | Museums | Markers | Historic Sites | History Facts | Presentations | History Map
Omaha Topics: Black History | Racism | Bombings | Police Brutality | Black Business | Black Heritage Sites | Redlining
More Info: About the Site | About the Historian | Articles | Podcast | Comics | Bookstore | Services | Donate | Sponsor | Contact

Order A Beginner’s Guide to North Omaha History here »

Elsewhere Online

This is “Throwing Down Some Heavy Light,” an interview with me and A’Jamal Byndon of MORE: Movement in Omaha for Racial Equity on July 31, 2025. In this conversation I talk about some of the motivations for NorthOmahaHistory.com

In September 2023, I spoke with 1st Sky Omaha about the motivations and vision behind NorthOmahaHistory.com.

I made this video about NorthOmahaHistory.com in 2020 and explored some of the ideas in this article.