Culture of North Omaha, Nebraska - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Culture in North Omaha, Nebraska
North Omaha, Nebraska
North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the east, as defined by the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the Omaha...

, the north end of Omaha

Omaha, Nebraska

Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...

, is defined by socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and political diversity among its residents. The neighborhood's culture is largely influenced by its predominately African American community

African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska

African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska are central to the development and growth of the 43rd largest city in the United States. The first free black settler in the city arrived in 1854, the year the city was incorporated....

Cultural events

North Omaha is home to several important annual events that help define and celebrate the community, its history, and its future. Native Omaha Days

Native Omaha Days

Native Omahan Days is a bi-annual event in North Omaha, Nebraska celebrating the community's historical and cultural legacies. Held since 1976, the Native Omaha Days include picnics, family reunions, class reunions and a large parade...

is a biennial North Omaha cultural tradition, reuniting members of the city's African-American community. The Days are commemorated with a variety of events, including the Evergreen Reunion, named after the town in Alabama

Evergreen, Alabama

Evergreen is a city in Conecuh County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 3,944. The city is the county seat of Conecuh County.-History:Early settlers to the area came from Georgia and South Carolina beginning in 1818...

from where many families' ancestors migrated.

Other annual activities include the Juneteenth

Juneteenth

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, is a holiday in the United States honoring African American heritage by commemorating the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. State of Texas in 1865...

Parade, the Fort Omaha Intertribal Powwow, Omaha Blues, Jazz, & Gospel Festival

Omaha Blues, Jazz, & Gospel Festival

The Omaha Blues, Jazz, & Gospel Festival is an annual event of blues, jazz and gospel music that has been held at Rosenblatt Stadium in South Omaha and Fort Omaha in North Omaha, Nebraska in August...

, Florence Days, and the Omaha North High School

Omaha North High School

Omaha North High Magnet School is a public high school located at 4410 N 36th Street in Omaha, Nebraska. The school is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics magnet school in the Omaha Public Schools district. North has won several awards, including being named a 2007 Magnet Schools of...

Homecoming, including a parade for the community. The Stone Soul Picnic is also an important event.

Cultural institutions

John Beasley Theater is located in the Lake Point Building at 2401 Lake St. Suite 130. It is named after native Omaha actor John Beasley

John Beasley (actor)

John Beasley is an American actor known for his role as Irv Harper on the TV series Everwood and recurring roles on CSI, Millennium and The Pretender. He also portrayed General Lasseter in The Sum of All Fears and Rev. C. Charles Blackwell in The Apostle. In 1992 he played Jesse Hall's dad in the...

. The Theater's mission is, "To provide new educational opportunities for residents to experience and develop their interests and talents in theater, dance, music, poetry and writing."

North Omaha is proud of its history as an important jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

community. Dreamland Plaza is located at 24th and Lizzie Robinson Streets, adjacent to the Dreamland Ballroom. Dreamland was the premier nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

for jazz, blues and big band music in Omaha from the 1920s through the 1960s. The site of a recent $2 million investment by the city, it is now home to cultural activities throughout the year. The Dreamland Historical Project is set on restoring North Omaha as a jazz center. The Love’s Jazz and Art Center, located at 2510 North 24th Street, is a non-profit dedicated to showcasing, collection, documentation, preservation, study and the dissemination of the history and culture of African Americans in the arts. It is named after Omaha jazz legend Preston Love

Preston Love

Preston Haines Love was a renowned alto saxophonist, bandleader and songwriter from Omaha, Nebraska.-Biography:Preston Love grew up in North Omaha and graduated from North High....

, a band leader and one-time saxophonist with Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

. Other influential figures on North Omaha's early scene included Lloyd Hunter

Lloyd Hunter

Lloyd Hunter was a trumpeter and big band leader from North Omaha, Nebraska. He led band across the Midwest from 1923 until his death. Hunter had also worked with Jessie Stone in Kansas City, Missouri.-Biography:...

, Anna Mae Winburn

Anna Mae Winburn

Anna Mae Winburn, née Darden was an African American vocalist and jazz bandleader who flourished beginning in the mid 1930s...

and her International Sweethearts of Rhythm

International Sweethearts of Rhythm

The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day...

trombonist, Helen Jones Woods

Helen Jones Woods

Helen Jones Woods is a jazz and swing trombone player most renowned for her performances with the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. She was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame in 2007.-About:...

. The Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame

Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame

The Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame, or the OBMHoF, is a nonprofit organization founded in 2005 to celebrate, document and honour the legacy of the many top vocalists and musicians whose musical careers began in the metropolitan area of Omaha, Nebraska...

was established in 2005 to celebrate this legacy.

Formed by Bertha Calloway in the 1960s, the Negro Historical Society opened the Great Plains Black History Museum

Great Plains Black History Museum

The Great Plains Black History Museum is located at 2213 Lake Street in the Near North Side neighborhood in North Omaha, Nebraska. It is housed in the Webster Telephone Exchange Building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places...

in North Omaha in 1976. The Museum is located at 2213 Lake Street, and is home to Omaha's only African-American history collection.

Movie theaters

The Diamond Moving Picture Theater, located at 24th and Lake, was flattened by the Easter Sunday tornado of 1913. After the tornado rumors circulated that hundreds had died inside the building; that proved to be untrue, as all patrons had escaped. However, the resulting collection of rescuers in that location served useful, as the majority of the dead were in that vicinity.

The Beacon Theater was located at 2910 Ames Avenue and was demolished in the early 1970s. The Corby Theatre at 2805 North 16th Street, the Lathrop Theatre at 3212 North 24th Street, the Circle Theatre at 524 North 33rd Street and the North Star Theatre at 2413 Ames Avenue opened in the 1930s. The Minne Lusa Theater

Minne Lusa Theater

The Minne Lusa Theater building is located at 6714 North 30th Street in North Omaha, Nebraska. It was a one-screen neighborhood movie house that opened in the mid-1930s that seated approximately 400 patrons. The theater closed sometime in the mid-1950s. Today the building houses Heartland Family...

was opened on North 30th Street in the Minne Lusa

Minne Lusa

The Minne Lusa neighborhood is located in North Omaha, Nebraska between Vane Street and Read Street on the north and Redick Avenue on the south; North 24th Street on the east and North 30th Street on the west...

neighborhood in the 1930s, too. All of these theaters closed in the 50s and some were demolished. The Cass Theatre at 500 North 16th Street was opened in the 1940s and closed in the 50s, as well.

European immigrant and European American culture

From its start in the late 19th century, near North Omaha was the location of a mixed European immigrant community that also became a center for the African-American community. The Jewish community in the area was rich, with several synagogues the provided social and cultural activities. Similarly, Catholic parishes in the area welcomed Irish and German immigrants. Far North Omaha, near Florence

Florence, Nebraska

Florence is a neighborhood in Omaha, Nebraska on the city's north end and originally one of the oldest cities in Nebraska. It was incorporated by the Nebraska Territorial Legislature on March 10, 1857. The site of Winter Quarters for Mormon migrants traveling west, it has the oldest cemetery for...

, was home to an almost exclusively Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

n immigrant community. With a variety of churches and social clubs, this neighborhood was a cultural center for many of North Omaha's working class and middle class whites. Los of industrial jobs in the late 1950s and 1960s accelerated changes in the neighborhood. It became predominantly African American and many people have suffered from unemployment.

African American culture

North Omaha has long been the location of a thriving community of African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s. Early arrivals came mostly after Reconstruction, but the greatest number of migrants came after 1910. Blacks have contributed extensively to the economic, political and moral compass of Omaha. While struggling with racial tension

Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska

Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska occurred mostly because of the city's volatile mixture of high numbers of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and African-American migrants from the Deep South. While racial discrimination existed at several levels, the violent outbreaks were within...

, many African Americans have become involved in the civil rights movement

Civil rights movement in Omaha, Nebraska

The Civil rights movement in Omaha, Nebraska has roots that extend back until at least 1912. With a history of racial tension that starts before the founding of the city, Omaha has been the home of numerous overt efforts related to securing civil rights for African Americans since at least the...

Suburbanization

In the late 19th century near North Omaha, closer to the downtown core, was home to many working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

, middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

, and upper class

Upper class

In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...

WASP

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...

and Jewish families. Numerous churches, synagogues, social and civic clubs, and other cultural activities from that time continue to this day, despite the expansion of population gravitating to West Omaha in several waves of suburbanization. For instance, the City of Omaha noted in a landmark designation that Calvin Memorial Presbyterian Church, "... reflects the change of North Omaha from an affluent white suburb to a black inner city neighborhood and the manner in which many area churches were established, changed ownership and merged." Some churches and residential areas demonstrated racial discrimination. A 1966 documentary examining efforts in Omaha to change segregation was A Time for Burning
A Time for Burning
A Time for Burning is a 1966 American documentary film which explores the attempts of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha, Nebraska, to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to "negro" Lutherans in the city's north side. The film was directed by San Francisco filmmaker...

.

North Omaha's working class, middle class, and upper class white history is evidenced in the architecture of many neighborhoods, several notable mansions, progressive apartment building designs, and other churches or former synagogues spread throughout the area. This is especially evident in the Kountze Place

Kountze Place

The Kountze Place neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska is a historically significant community on the city's north end. Today the neighborhood is home to several buildings and homes listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located between North 16th Avenue on the east to North 30th...