Some cities across Nebraska have long histories of African American communities, and one of them is Grand Island. Dating back to the 1870s, Grand Island includes the establishment of a Black neighborhood in the 1880s, Black businesspeople, institutions, and much more. It is undeniable that the Black population is part of the overall diversity in Grand Island. Throughout the last 150-plus years, the city has been the third-largest Black population in the state at various times. This is a history of African Americans in Grand Island, Nebraska.

Early Pioneers

In 1880, the US Census recorded 27 African Americans in Hall County, including Grand Island. It grew to 42 in 1900 and 129 by 1910. During this era, there were a lot of notable residents.

One of the city’s first notable Black residents was Thomas “Tommy” Goodchild (1844-1892), who arrived in 1876 and became Grand Island’s first African American firefighter. During the early era of Grand Island, jobs as Pullman porters and hotel bellhops were highly respected and often provided a middle-class lifestyle for Black men in Nebraska’s larger cities, including Grand Island. Starting during this era, there was a Prince Hall Mason fraternity lodge in the city, too, which shows there was an early and well-established Black community structure in the city.

Amos Harris (c1856-1911), known as “N—– Amos” or “Big Amos,” was a respected Black cowboy who was buried in Grand Island. Calling him “a bad hombre” when he was young, when he died, newspaper reports also referred to him a “beloved cowboy and huge man” who was buried in Grand Island. Born in Galveston, Texas, Amos was a child of formerly enslaved parents and reportedly spoke five languages including fluent German. Known for his expertise with cattle and being a “gentle giant” who later owned a 400-acre ranch in Wheeler County. In Grand Island, he became a well-known figure with grand stories from old-timers about his size, his appetite at local cafes, and his interactions with people. When he died, Amos’ funeral was at the segregated Methodist church, and the Black community raised funds to purchase his headstone in the Grand Island Cemetery.

According to a 1986 article, local historian Jo Reidy found Black families in the area included the Berry, Brogden, Debell, Goodchild, Pettiford, Richardson, Graham, Munson, Young, Fears, Flippin, Gairey, Hunter, Jackson, and Robert families. She estimated 150 African Americans are buried in the Grand Island Cemetery, and reported that by the early 1900s most Black farmers in the county had sold their acres and moved into Grand Island. (* Reidy reportedly wrote a manuscript for the Nebraska Pioneer Press that I haven’t located yet; today there is a large research file at the Nebraska Historical Society with her findings in it.) In 1998, Reidy reported that she had established more than 105 files on Black families for a long time, as well as 70 others who lived there for a short while.

An Established Black Community

With many Black families and individuals living in Grand Island throughout the decades, it should be no surprise that a Black community was established and thriving in the city from the 1880s onward. Along with specific homes and neighborhoods where African Americans lived, there were historical churches, schools, and businesses that were important to the community. They were not transient or “disappearing,” but consistent and powerful in different ways throughout the decades.

Noted People

There are many noted Black residents in Grand Island’s history. When she died at age 86, Serena Catherine “Irene” Fears (1826-1912) was noted as the oldest African American woman in the city. Coming to Grand Island from Virginia, she raised eight kids in the city. Reverend Earl Perkins operated the Shiloh Temple Baptist Church for several years, and more recently, Pastor Russell Wolf operated the Calvary Tabernacle in Grand Island. The Stuhr Museum has an oral history interview with Beverly Joan Cloud (1937-2024) on African American families in Grand Island. Ms. Cloud was from a historic Black Nebraska pioneer family that had been in the state since the 1870s. The Stuhr also has oral history interviews with Aaron Lewis (1985) and Dan Gates (1983) about the history of African Americans in the city.

William Thornton Patrick (1885-1952) was an important Black resident of Grand Island for several decades. The son of a formerly enslaved man who was a Pony Express Rider in Nebraska, Mr. Patrick moved from Hamilton County to Grand Island. He was a farmer and railroad worker before getting a position as a hotel doorman at Hotel Yancy, the city’s finest hotel. For twenty years until his death in 1952, Mr. Patrick was an unofficial ambassador for the city’s guests. Newspapers and politicians noted him for his impressive presence, knowledge, and skills.

Black Churches

There have been Black congregations in Grand Island for more than 140 years. St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church was a segregated, Black-only congregation at 1021 West 7th Street. Kings Chapel Free Methodist Church was opened in 1922 at 1116 East 5th Street, and across the street was Solomon Temple AME Church, which was established at 1103 East 5th Street in 1912 and closed in 1976. More recently, Shiloh Temple and the Calvary Tabernacle were important congregations. Similar to communities across Nebraska, these churches served as the primary religious, social, recreational, and cultural centers for the Black community.

Black Education

Historical information on African American students attending public schools in Grand Island has been challenging for me to find. Given the city’s bend towards segregation throughout its first century, it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the education system was de facto segregated, if not de jure segregated during WWII. However, no evidence has been found to this effect. Its important to note, too, that according to oral histories, Black churches across Nebraska often played a major role in organizing education for Black children when public schools were segregated or inadequate. This might have been the case in Grand Island’s Black community.

Black Businesses

The history of Black-owned businesses in Grand Island shows how Black businesspeople quickly started and got established, primarily in the service sector, and provided important economic development for the community. The earliest documented Black-owned business was a barbershop, around 1876, when Wilford Goodchild established himself as the first Black barber in Grand Island. His brother was Tommy Goodchild, mentioned earlier as the city’s first African American firefighter. Finding more specific Black-owned businesses in Grand Island has been challenging though.

Later, given that there was a local Prince Hall Mason lodge, we know that there were likely members from the Black business class of professionals and entrepreneurs.

Wealth and Ownership

As “the last hired and first fired,” Black people in Grand Island haven’t had a lot of opportunities to accumulate wealth or generate significant income. However, they thrived in spite of the challenges and without support from the white power structure in the city.

Some of the Black entrepreneurs in the community included John Baker, who ran a cafe called Coffee John’s Lunch Room, and Arthur Gairy’s lunch counter called Arthur’s Chili Parlor, and who had a lunch wagon featuring tamales. In the 1880s, a laundry was run downtown by William Curtis and Eliza Young. Dr. Charles Flippin, a Civil War veteran, practiced in the city from 1910 to 1930.

In 1955, Black advocates in the city reported that “over 75% of the Negroes in Grand Island own their homes.” The population didn’t sustain though, and in 1968 a local newspaper report said there were 125 Black residents in the city then, and that the population had dropped “significantly” in the decade prior.

Racism in Grand Island

As Black residents established themselves in the city, segregation deeply affected Black people in Grand Island. African Americans in the city often found work limited to “servile roles” like bellhops and porters, maids and factory workers, especially with the sugar beet industry. Throughout the community, their proximity to white residents was permitted only in a subservient capacity, not because they weren’t qualified, experienced, or knowledgable either: Often arriving with educations and experience, systemic racism simply stopped them from being employed beyond the most basic, servant jobs.

Grand Island was a “sundown town.” Sociologist James W. Loewen wrote the book on the phenomenon called Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension in American Racism. He wrote, “Between 1890 and continuing until 1968, white Americans established thousands of towns for whites only… Many towns drove out their Black populations then posted sundown signs. Other towns passed ordinances barring African Americans after dark, or prohibiting them from owning or renting property.” In my own research, I found a 1922 newspaper article in the Grand Island Independent that warned Black visitors to the city, “N—–, don’t let the sun go down on you in this here town.”

This was part of a larger pattern of widespread but often informal employment and housing discrimination across Nebraska, reinforced by the organized racism of groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was active in Grand Island as part of a significant resurgence that swept across Nebraska in the mid-1920s. Grand Island was listed as one of the Nebraska communities with an “especially active” Klavern. The Klan’s racism was broadly targeted, focusing its hatred not only against African Americans, but also against Catholics, Jewish people, and immigrants, all while wrapping its message in rhetoric of patriotism and “Americanism”. The peak of the Klan’s influence in the city included a visit from national leader Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard, in 1925.

Unlike in Omaha, Valentine, and other cities in Nebraska, there no examples of documented violence against Black people have been found in Grand Island yet. However, the presence of the KKK makes it a highly likely possibility, and my search continues.

At least three Black residents from Grand Island were implicated in the Loup City riot of June 1934. After a day of fiery speeches at a daylong unemployment speakers’ picnic by local speakers including a Grand Island resident, African American Floyd Booth, along with a national Communist organizer named “Mother” Ella Bloor (1862-1951). Harry Smith, a Black resident of Grand Island, was a political activist who also spoke. According to one period account, Smith was the last speaker at the picnic, “and the longer he spoke the worse he was in condemning the government and making insulting remarks concerning the government and local officials.”

Various accounts said the speakers led to a riot breaking out in town. Another account said, “The local crowd had taken ‘exception to two colored people’ among the organizers, Floyd and Loretta Booth of Grand Island. There were cries to run those n—–s out of town,’ the eyewitness said. The crowd also began to shout for Smith and the rest to leave too.” Afterward the rioters tried attacking them, both Booth and his wife were among those arrested and jailed for the riot, along with Harry Smith, who was immediately identified as an organizer for the event. The newspaper said Smith’s advocacy was focused on combating economic devastation. After appeals going to the Nebraska Supreme Court, the Booths were found guilty of rioting along with six other people, with Loretta serving sentences of 10 days and jail and paying a $50 fine, and Floyd spending a month in the county jail and paying a $100 fine. Harry Smith was also charged with rioting, but couldn’t be found to stand for trial. Smith was revealed to be the local “communist organizer” based in Grand Island who led the event that preceded the rioting. Almost a month after the riot, nighttime gun shots were fired at the Booth home in Grand Island. They continued to live in the city though, and were divorced there in 1939.

An anecdote from the 1950s told about a downtown tavern where Black customers weren’t allowed to buy a glass of beer, but could buy bottles instead.

Much later, a 1968 survey by students from Grand Island High School found that the city’s racist tendencies were intact. Overall, the survey showed significant opposition to open housing and starkly negative attitudes toward Black people in the city. The key findings were:

• 57% of Grand Island residents polled said they would not rent or sell their property to a Black person.
• 49% specifically said they would not rent to a Black person of Middle-Class standards.
• 48% stated they would not sell property to a Black person.
• 65% believed that property values would decrease if a Black person moved into their neighborhood.
• 46% believed property values would decrease even if the Black person shared the same personal characteristics as the existing white residents.
• 84% believed everyone had the right to live anywhere they could financially afford.
• 62% of residents said open housing should be protected by law.

The survey was conducted among a population in Grand Island where only about 125 Black people lived. Most respondents reported having no contact or seldom having contact with Black residents.

War-Time Migration and Jim Crow

The Black population in Grand Island saw a significant increase during World War II due to employment at the federal facility called the Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant. Built in 1942, the facility employed thousands of workers, including African Americans. The overall presence of large, federally funded military facilities during the war years led to the federal government formally segregating housing and jobs in Grand Island. Before 1942, segregation in Grand Island was de facto, meaning that everyone simply understood Black people “stayed in their place.” After 1942, racial segregation was de jure, meaning that rules, regulations and laws were in place to enforce the practice. A segregated USO was opened on East Front Street in downtown Grand Island in 1943 for US Army troops who came through the city on the train. It operated until the war ended in 1945.

In June 1945, the African American resident of Grand Island to die in World War II became Pfc. Henry L. Wilson, who was killed in the South Pacific.

One of the establishments from the WWII era was called the Grand Island Negro Community and Recreation Center. Existing in some form from at least 1944, in 1953 they bought a new building at 1103 East 5th Street. The organization hosted musical performances, athletic events, and other activities, and lasted into the 1960s before closing. The first board of directors included Dan Gates, John Dixon, Mrs. Eugene Carroll, Sallie Bell, and Henry Washington. In 1963, the organization turned down a proposed economic boycott against chain stores in the city that discriminated against Black people, saying “we believe a boycott would be of little economic effect.” They did pass a resolution against discrimination though, but it didn’t stop the organizing from ceasing to exist a short while later.

In 1949, Henry Washington, the chairman of the city’s Negro History Program called for help in compiling a history of African Americans in Grand Island. Apparently the Hall County Historical Society asked for the information.

The Prince Hall Masons Grand Lodge, a statewide gathering, met in the city in 1922 and again in 1955. In the latter gathering, meetings were held at the city auditorium and public parks, with Nebraska Senator John Adams of Omaha as a keynote speaker. At that point there were ten lodges across the state that made up the grand lodge.

In 1967, the city created a Community Development Action Council , and by 1970, it established a Commission on Human Rights to specifically address the Civil Rights of African Americans and others. Although this commission was later disbanded, these actions demonstrate the persistent local struggle for equality against the backdrop of racial bias and segregation in Grand Island.

Steps Toward Civil Rights

Despite its temporary power and highly visible violent methods—such as demonstrations, parades, and cross burnings that became commonplace throughout the state—the KKK’s formidable presence in Grand Island didn’t last long. Statewide, the KKK faded by the end of the 1920s because of internal scandals and popular backlash against its open bigotry. Nonetheless, its period of activity made the city’s organized white supremacy and entrenched racial hatred the norm.

When the US government formally segregated Grand Island in the 1940s, they did it at the behest of some city leaders who favored the move. This was surely continuing sentiment and likely influenced by the 1920s KKK and powers that existed long before its formation in the city.

The peak Black population related to the wartime labor at the Cornhusker Army Ammunition Plant largely dispersed after the war, so the Black community’s presence in Grand Island in this period was numerically modest but culturally active.

In 1967, activists in Grand Island succeeded in lobbying the City of Grand Island to form the Community Development Action Council, a citizen’s advisory committee. Focused on equality and justice, it led to the creation of the Grand Island Commission on Human Rights in 1970. The commission implicitly acknowledged that legal structures and institutional practices—the essence of Jim Crow—needed to be officially confronted and dismantled. However, after some initial successes, the commission was disbanded within 20 years.

The Grand Island Independent newspaper published an editorial in 1969 congratulating the New Holland factory for its attempts to hire Black workers. Disappointed that “we have been unsuccessful getting that [Black] portion of the community employed at our plant,” the editorial spoke highly of the company’s commitment to hiring Black people.

Proving Black Grander Islanders have never been monolithic, a 1978 news report showed how differently various community members felt about racism in the city. One man said “there was a unique, insidious form of racism here,” while another said white people had racist attitudes but not the actions. Another man said he moved away from the city after 5 1/2 months of living there because of racist attitudes. Another man who tried putting up a campaign poster for his effort to win office in the city was told be a local store owner he couldn’t because “we’re prejudiced here.”

Around the Millennium

The history of Black residents in Grand Island in the last 50 years has been marked by continuity and community building efforts. After WWII, a lot of Black people moved away from the city to communities in Omaha, Lincoln, and out of state. Black people in the city stayed active though.

Struggles in the city continue. In 2002, the Nebraska Employment Opportunity held a forum to discuss fair housing in the city and explore whether there was racial segregation. The Independent ran a feature on African American history in Grand Island in 2004. Seven years later, the newspaper, YWCA and other businesses and organizations in Grand Island hosted a “Pledge Against Racism” claiming that the newspaper had “served as the region’s leading voice for equity, fairness and tolerance.”

The local community maintained a focus on cultural and historical preservation. Details on specific Black businesses, African American education initiatives, and the establishment of Black churches uniquely within Grand Island during this era are hard to come by though.

Black People in Grand Island Today

In 2025, Black people keep living in, contributing to, and making Grand Island a better place for everyone. It is a modest population and makes up a small percentage of the city and county population. However, it remains one of the largest ethnic minority groups in the city after the Hispanic or Latino community. Recent population estimates show the African American population in Grand Island is estimated to be approximately 3.5% of the total population.

In 2022 and 2025, the newspaper published articles highlighting ongoing racism in Grand Island.

Black history in Grand Island shows a long-standing, though modest, African American community that is rooted in the pioneer era, essential community institutions, and contributions to both the local economy and the nation’s wartime efforts.

Maybe in the future its realities and contributions will be acknowledged more.

Grand Island Black History Tour

Following are locations mentioned in this article that can be viewed for a Black history tour of Grand Island.

• Site of St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, 1021 West 7th Street
• Former Solomon Temple AME Church and later, the Negro Community and Recreation Center, 1103 East 5th Street
• Former Kings Chapel Free Methodist Church, 1116 East 5th Street
• Site of the Segregated USO, 107 East Front Street
• Grand Island Cemetery, 3168 West Stolley Park Road
• Stuhr Museum, 3133 US Highway 34
  • The Stuhr has a collection of oral histories about Black history in Grand Island, including Beverly Joan Cloud from 1987; Aaron Lewis from 1985; Dan Gates in 1983; Arthur Gairey in 1987; and John Dixon in 1977.

Special thanks to Preston Love, Jr. for partially supporting research for this article.

You Might Like…

NEBRASKA BLACK HISTORY
Communities: A History of African Americans in Grand Island
Other: A History of Enslavement in Nebraska | A History of the Underground Railroad in Nebraska

Elsewhere Online

• William D Rowley, “The Loup City Riot of 1934: Main Street vs. the ‘Far-out’ Left,” Nebraska History 47 (1966): 295-328.
• “State of Nebraska vs. Ella Bloor and Others,” University of Nebraska at Kearney (February-21-1935)

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