A theater opened to African Americans in a time when Omaha was deeply segregated, the Ritz Theater was an anomaly in the city. Here’s some of its history.
Category: racism
What do Fred Astaire, Roger and Gale Sayers, Bob Gibson, Bob Boozer, Michael Anania, Brenda Council, and former Omaha mayor Johnny Rosenblatt all have in common? Born in the Near North Side, each attended the same school. That same building is a neighborhood institution with deep roots going back at least 140 years in Omaha’s past. This is a history of North Omaha’s Kellom School.
This is a history of the Old Plantation, a display at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in North Omaha in 1898.
The first-ever Black-owned, operated and filmed theater company in the world was led from North Omaha.
One woman from North Omaha made it her life’s work to ban the demon’s spirit, juice, sauce, hooch, vino, and liquid courage from everywhere, all the time. This is a biography of Anna R. Woodbey.
This is a biography of a longtime African American leader in North Omaha’s history, Nathaniel Hunter.
This is a history of the only foster home for African American youth Omaha history, open from the 1940s into the 1950s.
