A Note on Language: While the word “Kaffir” is recognized today as a deeply offensive racial slur, it was the name chosen and used by this company’s African American founders in 1920 to signify their industrial ambitions and pride.

In the early 1920s, North Omaha was home to a bold industrial experiment that sought to prove the economic power of the Black community. At the center of this ambition was the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories, a business marketed as a nation-wide business and a “race enterprise” that aimed to make its stockholders independent for life.

A “Race Enterprise”

Incorporated under the laws of Nebraska with an authorized capitalization of $500,000, the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories was a major commercial undertaking. The company was distinctive for being one of the first of its kind to be organized and conducted entirely by “colored people” in the United States.

The leadership was equally trailblazing. The company’s president was Miss Madree Penn, a graduate of Howard University with a distinguished background as a teacher and organizing secretary for the Y.W.C.A. National War Work Council. Joining her on the board were community leaders like Rev. John Albert Williams, who served as treasurer of the company, and Dr. Asa E. Fletcher, a successful physician and chemist who developed many of the company’s original formulas. Another investor in the company was Charles Storz, a brother of the founder of the nearby brewery.

Meet Madree Penn

Manufacturing on 16th Street

The company was headquartered in a prominent three-story brick building with a two-story frame annex located at 815–819 North 16th Street, just south of the intersection of 16th and Cuming. A popular corner, the Ford Truck Factory, Badger Auto Body, and several other vital industries were located nearby.

The Monitor proudly called the building that housed the Kaffir Chemical Laboratory “one of the largest office buildings owned and conducted entirely by colored people in the United States” and described its acquisition as a monumental step for the race. The building was transformed into a prominent Black professional hub in Omaha and featured manufacturing, administrative offices, and medical suites

The Kaffir Chemicals facility moved in in 1920. It was not just a storefront. Instead, it was a fully equipped factory with dedicated space for administrative offices, laboratories on the third floor, and store rooms for raw materials in the basement. The second floor was notably rented out to other business and professional men, further cementing the building’s role as a community hub. I found the building housed a pharmacy and sanitarium, as well as a Black-owned hotel at this address during the same timeframe.

The Product Line

Kaffir Chemical Laboratories manufactured an impressive array of over eleven products, with formulas for dozens more in development. Their leading offerings included:

• Dentlo: The company’s flagship product, marketed as a specialized “pyorrhea preventive toothpaste”. Advertisements guaranteed it would insure a “healthy sweet smelling mouth” and give teeth a “pearly lustre”.
• Kaffir Kream: Described as an “ideal skin food” and a vanishing cream necessary for “every well bred woman’s toilet”.
• Sultox: A blood antiseptic and stomach tonic designed to aid digestion and “enrich the blood”.
• Rem: An “anti-phlogistic compound” used for external inflammation and fever. In modern medicine, it would have been called an anti-inflammatory.

The company had an aggressive sales strategy, employing general agents as far away as Kansas City and Detroit to push the sale of stock and goods across several states.

Economic Ambition

The Kaffir Chemical Laboratories represented a significant attempt at Black economic self-determination. Promoters urged the community to support the “race enterprise,” arguing that if all colored people in Omaha used Dentlo, the plant would soon employ hundreds more from the community.

During this era, there were many Black-owned businesses in Omaha, especially up and down 24th Street. Professional businesses were located in and around the Jefferson Square neighborhood. Other important Black-owned businesses around this time included the Western Provision Company at 24th and Lake Streets, the Cooperative Workers of America Department Store by 24th and Hamilton, and the Omaha Monitor newspaper.

While the Kaffir Chemical Laboratory eventually faded from the headlines, by 1925 it wasn’t mentioned in the newspaper any longer. However, its stock was still being traded as late as 1937.

Its history remains a powerful example of the sophisticated industrial dreams that thrived in Omaha’s Black community during the Harlem Renaissance.

The Building

Originally permitted in 1910 as a “double brick store,” the building at 815-817-819 North 16th Street evolved through several distinct cultural and commercial eras. Built in 1910, the building was originally home to the Elk Hotel.

In 1920, the Kaffir Chemical Laboratories purchased the site. Following this industrial peak ending in 1925, the building served various roles, including the Midland Cafe, the Wilson Hotel, and the National Council of Jewish Women’s thrift shop.

Operating as the Wilson Hotel from around 1935, the building was sold for $7,920 in 1937. That year, the building was sold by the Douglas County Sheriff to pay for back taxes. The Wilson Hotel closed in 1941. Two years later in 1943, the Streamline Hotel opened up there, The owner was Erskine “Specht” Lillard, an African American businessman who operated in North Omaha for a long time. Staying open for decades afterwards, in 1977, the manager of the hotel was stabbed in an apparent robbery, and the hotel was closed permanently soon afterwards.

The building was demolished around 1978.

Remembering Kaffir

Today, the building that housed the company is long gone and there is nobody living with a memory of the business that once existed there. While it apparently only existed from 1920 to 1925, Black-owned businesses have existed in Omaha since the year it was founded, and continue in Omaha today. In 2007, Creighton University bought the land where the Kaffir Chemical Laboratory stood.

With its dynamic leader Ms. Penn and its ambition, maybe in the future this mighty business will be recognized as one of the most important from Omaha’s Black business history!

You Might Like…

• History of Businesses Owned By African Americans in Omaha
• A History of the Cooperative Workers of American Department Store in North Omaha
• A History of Edgewood Park, Omaha’s First Black-Owned Subdivision

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”