Long before there was a community called North Omaha or even the Near North Side, the young Omaha City had a segregated neighborhood for African Americans. Before 24th and Lake even existed, Omaha’s first Black neighborhood was established in the 1850s. It surrounded 10th and Dodge Street, and was a segregated enclave of a few blocks of tenements and shacks. It housed significant community leaders and institutions, witnessed early civil rights struggles and eventually led to North Omaha’s integration in the 1960s.This is a history of Omaha’s first Black neighborhood.
A History of the Neighborhood
Built near the Missouri River, Omaha’s first Black neighborhood was an informal enclave that started in the 1850s as soon as the city started. While “North Omaha” is the modern heart of the community, in the 1860s, the Black community lived in this neighborhood surrounding 10th and Dodge in what was called the “Near North Side,” which was actually south of what we now consider North Omaha.
Centered on 9th, 10th, and 11th Streets, the neighborhood was located between Douglas and Capitol Avenue. Most Black families lived on 9th and 10th Streets near Dodge in tenements and early shacks built for them. This area was used because of its proximity to the Missouri River docks, the Union Pacific shops located at the foot of 9th Street, and other places where Black men found work as laborers, teamsters, and barbers.
Long before the North Omaha “Black Belt” was established, the heart of African American life in Omaha beat along the riverfront, centered roughly around 11th and Dodge Streets. In the 1860s and 1870s, this area—now part of the downtown business district—was a bustling, integrated, yet often hostile frontier within the city.
During the pioneer era of the 1850s and 1860s, Omaha was a hub for the steamboat trade and later became the primary jumping-off point for the Union Pacific Railroad, the earliest Black residents settled near the river and the Omaha Shops where work was available.
The first Black neighborhood in Omaha was home to pioneers like Sally Bayne, often (mis)attributed as the first Black settler in Omaha who arrived in 1854, as well as Bill Lee, who I identify as the first recorded Black business owner in Nebraska. He opened a barbershop at the Douglas House nearby in 1856. Phillip King (1822–1888) was an early Black Omahan who arrived in 1855 and worked as a printer for the Omaha Republican. Important leaders who lived in this neighborhood included Dick Curry (1831–1885), a Civil War veteran and founder of the Prince Hall Masons in Nebraska who was also a business owner, and Edwin Overall (1835–1901), who became a central figure in the early fight for civil rights from his home in this neighborhood. When he became a mail clerk in 1869, he became the first African American federal government employee in Nebraska.
This wasn’t the only neighborhood where Black people lived in Omaha; however, it has the signs of being its first large, designated segregated area for the city’s African American population to live. There is no evidence that it was formally identified this way (de jure segregation), but that it was just understood that this is where Black people were allowed to live (de facto segregation). The newspapers at the time, including The Omaha Republican and the Omaha Daily Herald identified other Black neighborhoods including Casey’s Row at S. 15th and Douglas Streets as well as other places. However, the first Black neighborhood in the city was around 10th and Dodge.
The “Colored School” (1867–1872)
The most significant landmark of this early neighborhood was the segregated “Colored School” that was run by the Omaha school district. Despite the 1867 statehood mandate that prohibited racial discrimination, Omaha’s city leaders attempted to maintain Jim Crow norms…