Long before Omaha’s official founding in 1854, white supremacy tried to choke out the potential for democracy in the Nebraska Territory. From 1854 to 1866, Nebraska was a “whites only” territory that systematically kept Black people from voting and being elected to office. Early politics in Nebraska were dominated by enslavers who protected enslavement while denying its presence in the region.

Nebraska Was For Enslavers

Despite the popular idea that Nebraska was an “enlightened” Northern place, the reality was that there were at least 50 enslaved people in Nebraska before the end of the Civil War. With territorial politics led by enslavers and Southern conspiracists, Nebraska was intended to become a “whites only” state by a lot of people. Although they were among the first settlers in Omaha when it was founded in 1854, Black people were not prominent for decades. U.S. Marshals and bounty hunters enforced the Fugitive Slave Act ruthlessly throughout the territory, including Omaha, where early media including the Daily Herald and the Omaha Republican newspapers used the term “kidnappers” to strip the legal veneer from these hateful monsters.

Legal Segregation in Omaha

Right after the Civil War ended in 1865, Omaha’s politics and laws became a front in America’s national battle over civil rights during the Reconstruction. While the nation had been saved from racist insurrectionists, early leaders in Omaha wanted to keep white supremacy intact by making laws to stop anyone who wasn’t a “free white male” from voting. They put this into the 1866 draft of the Nebraska state constitution. It was a direct act of resistance against the integrationists in Washington who wanted formerly enslaved men to be able to vote.

Dr. George L. Miller, a prominent racist leader in Omaha who owned the Omaha Herald, used the era’s anxieties to engineer a “Negro Colony” scare. Using his editorials, he characterized federal government attempts to grant Black suffrage as an “infamous attempt” focused on destroying local self-government. He frequently promoted white supremacy and said that Democrats (the party of white people) had to stay in power. While his paper was clearly a racist engine of the Omaha Weekly Republican was the anti-Herald. They called out Miller’s racism and said more than once that Miller only wanted to stay in power because in an even race, Black people would win every time. In 1868, the Herald said they wanted to, “nauseate the public stomach” with the idea of Black citizenship until white voters loathed the “African party,” i.e. the Republicans.

By doing this, Miller framed equal rights for Black men as a threat to the stability of Omaha. Miller’s words showed much of white America’s a deep-seated fear that the end of the war might lead to an “even race” where Black people, given an “equal chance,” would successfully out-compete white settlers for economic and political dominance in the new state.

The “Fundamental Condition”

The U.S. Congress rejected Nebraska’s 1866 statehood application specifically because of it stopped anyone who wasn’t white—especially newly freed Black men—from voting. Nebraska was only admitted to the Union in 1867 after being forced to accept a so-called “fundamental condition” that mandated that no person be denied the right to vote based on race.

After the state constitution was amended and statehood was granted, in 1867, twenty African American men arrived at the Omaha polls to vote with their new powers. However, they were met by a mob of 400 armed “roughs” who used revolvers and intimidation to drive them away. The refusal of the mayor and police to protect these citizens marked a heinous start to the city’s history of Black voter suppression.

Mobilization and the “Black and Tan” Era (1868–1869)

Three of Omaha’s Black political leaders in the late 1860s are shown here left-to-right: Cyrus Bell, William R. Gamble, and Edwin Overall.

This terrorism made Black Omahans move from being passive subjects of Nebraska’s laws to become active agents of change by forming the Negro Republican Club in 1868.

By late 1868, integrated marching clubs known as the “Republican Tanners” formed to protect Black political interests and support candidates like John Taffe and John M. Thayer. These demonstrations were met with vicious vitriol from the press, which labeled them “Black and Tan” exhibitions. Media attacks targeted prominent figures, such as an unnamed “Nigger Sergeant-at-Arms” in the legislature—likely referring to the rising political agency of leaders like Richard D. Curry—using dehumanizing slurs to argue that Black men were unfit for civic life.

That doesn’t mean the city’s political establishment was any more welcoming, as white supremacists continued working against Black political involvement. For instance, in July 1868, The Omaha Herald published a mocking anecdote titled “CHAMPION CLUB,” using the slur “contraband” to describe one of Omaha’s Black residents. The piece ridiculed the man for supposedly misreading a “Young Men’s Democratic Campaign Club” banner as the “Champion Club”. This narrative was a calculated attempt to infantilize Black citizens and frame their political involvement as ignorant, and was intentionally weaponized to undermine the sophisticated mobilization of the Negro Republican Club during the 1868 election cycle in Omaha.

The political climate for Black people in Omaha between 1865 and 1870 was defined by a brutal transition from legal exclusion to a contested, fragile citizenship. While the so-called “Radical” Republican newspapers occasionally championed Black potential in an “even race,” Dr. Miller’s racist Democratic Omaha Herald countered with a systematic campaign of dehumanization, utilizing slurs like “contraband” and mocking Black literacy to frame the community as a “nauseating” threat to white self-government.

Despite facing a legal system that slandered them as “natural” criminals and a social environment where kidnappers operated with impunity, the small but growing Black community in Omaha stayed resilient and highly organized. Through the Negro Republican Club and integrated marching groups like the Tanners, they made their presence known at the polls and in public life. This transformed their political visibility into a direct challenge to white supremacy in OMaha.

The Betrayal of 1870

As the 1860s concluded, a brief window of institutional acceptance appeared when Edwin Overall became the state’s first Black federal employee in 1869. However, the community’s attempt to secure direct elective power was met with betrayal. In 1870, despite Richard D. Curry’s tireless work organizing the community, white Republican leadership rejected his nomination for Alderman. White leaders feared that a Black man on the ballot would validate the “Negro Colony” propaganda and alienate white voters. This act of political sabotage proved that while the legal right to vote had been won, de facto segregation and the at-large voting system would continue to silence Black voices in Omaha for generations to come.

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MY ARTICLES ABOUT BLACK HISTORY IN OMAHA
MAIN TOPICS: Black Heritage Sites | Black Churches | Black Hotels | Segregated Hospitals | Segregated Schools | Black Businesses | Black Politics | Black Newspapers | Black Firefighters | Black Policeman | Black Women | Black Legislators | Black Firsts | Social Clubs | Military Service Members | Sports
PIONEER BLACK OMAHA: Black People in Omaha Before 1850 | The First Black Neighborhood | Black Voting in Omaha Before 1870 | Racist Laws Before 1900 |
EVENTS: Stone Soul Picnic | Native Omahans Day | Congress of Black and White Americans | Harlem Renaissance in North Omaha
RELATED: Race and Racism | Civil Rights Movement | Police Brutality | Redlining
NEBRASKA BLACK HISTORY: Enslavement in Nebraska | Underground Railroad in Nebraska | Grand Island |
TIMELINES: Racism | Black Politics | Civil Rights | The Last 25 Years

RESOURCES: Book: #OmahaBlackHistory: African American People, Places and Events from the History of Omaha, Nebraska | Bibliography: Omaha Black History Bibliography | Video: “OmahaBlackHistory 1804 to 1930” | Podcast: “Celebrating Black History in Omaha”