November 1984
The Scswer
Page 7
Nebraska feib sins ibr?il Blades in Nebraska! iMIrt m vltofiBlacks
A.B. 'Buddy' Hogan
showed rapidly growing minority populations, Lincoln ranked at Many say things are getting better. They point to statistics such
Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States when the K , 5 pfCCnl minrity PPulaUon' dties f5 ta number of bIa? rs 0inaha' Ho?P f id' Eut
first black man was brought to the FfcbiashtefSw yJJ vTF' . a , . . , less than one percent of Ona kwyers are black - a
a Kv r,nt,in whi rt '!i " XL LTT.. Nebraska statistics portray a dim picture of the states largest disproportionate number, according to Hogan.
him.
chcrity blacks. The black unemployment rate is four times Hogan said many Omaha blacks have been lulled into a state of
higner than the white rate. The Infant mortality rate among blacks inactivity by apparent gains signs that everything s equal.
and what we get is,
what have you done for me lately?' " he said. "But when blacks are
It's not that blacks choose to remain uneducated, or aren't affected by the disease of racism themselves, believe me they
motivated to move out of their lower social position. Hogan said caU me."
the problem, as always, is racism. The NAACP did have a successful voter registration drivce,
Today's racism is institutional racism. It doesn't allow overt acts Hogan said, and area youths have done well on a national basis in
such as segregated restaurants and drinking fountains, lynchings the NAACP "Olympics of the Mind" competition. The event offers
and name-calling. Hogan said today's racism is built on the trained contests in sciences, mathematics, art and other subjects to show
bcM that blacks are inferior. Hogan calls this a laid back racism, black achievement in areas other than sports.
.JSlivKouts ls31.9perl,000births,comparcdtol3.9forL,ierestofthesate. Hie NAACP finds itself fighting apathy.
MdXffi SM3lonecom,unFity.39percer,ofU1ebhclsBveU, . Te.reinmii.ofan.Sid
:l,troA fi Krhrw rLvi v,f0 what have you done for me lately? he said. I
From appearances, it would seem blocks play a strong role in the
state's welfare: Ernie Chambers is a vocal member of the state
legislature; Fred Conley sits on the Omaha City Council; Gene
Crump occupies a high position in Gov. Bob Kerrey's administra
tion, as did Harold Peterson before him in the Charles Thone
administration. Surely blacks are not the "minuses" they once
were. At least, that's the country club and county co-op view.
Buddy Hogan has a different opinion.
"Black Nebraskans have never been worse off," said A.B.
"Buddy" Hogan, president of the Omaha chapter of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"White people generally think black people have progressed
greatly," Hogan said. "A Lou Harris poll said that while people
Sink black people have never had it better. You would think they
were tailing to people who lived on a different planet."
Blacks are a minority that is so minute in Nebraska that whites
may find racial discrimination an easy problem to ignore.
American Demographics magazine studied minority numbers in
U.S. cities with populations over 100,000. Though most cities
"When white people think of racism, they think of a bunch of
white people getting together and conspiring to kill a black man,"
he said But what we have today is more insidious.
faun
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iStories by Vr.rd W. Triptett HI
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' We tried to get the white media out to cover this," Hogan said.
"But it wasn't newsworthy enough for them. Now, if we called them
and told them black kids were going to riot in a high school, they'd
be out in force."
Hogan said the lack of media interest in black achievement was
an example of institutional racism. Showing black people have
talent and intelligence would disrupt "comfortable" racist images,
he said.
"Facing up to that would mean admitting blacks are capable of
any achievement," Hogan said. "Whites aren't ready to do that"
Because overt racism is no longer "in fashion," Hogan said,
racists have taken their old positions of power to pull strings in
private, without public outcry.
As a result, Hogan said blacks, hispanics and native Americans
fioht an invteihle prtemv. An enemv whn allows small pains to fit
jU it j reform laws of the 1960s, but who shuts the door on significant
,41 ij ? I 1 . " " advancement.
"You simply do not find blacks in this state in decision-making
roles," Hogan said. "Few are given the chance to apply for
positions the white power really cares about"
The black community shouldn't have to solve racism's problems.
The solution has to come from whites, Hogan said.
"Racism is so institutionalized and reinforced in this country
that most white people probably don't realize it," Hogan said.
"There is an unwillingness to recognize the problem."
Politics' self-professed liberals can't do anything to further the
black cause, Hogan said. Only sincere white people with good
intentions can help.
"There have been individual acts, and even some political
leaders who have tried to be sympathetic," Hogan said. "But what
we get is people dealing with the symptoms of racism. No one is
"nii855w L I jgjffllS
to voice our concerns," he said. "We the respect of those who have the blacks particularly college graduates or bourgeois Uncle Toms," Stelly said.
have no real avenue to express the power. Instead, we're always coming up from staying. The best black minds "The bloods in Lincoln think the ones in
things that disturb us." begging. No one respects you when you stay four or five years and get out as Omaha are savages."
Stelly thinks the answer goes beyond have your hand out" fast as they can, Stelly said. But Stelly said Nebraska does offer
eliminating institutional racism. Ne- But Lincoln lacks a cohesive black A rift between Lincoln's 1,100 blacks minorities better food prices, housing
braskans need to increase their cultural neighborhood, and Stelly said that and Omaha's 40,000 prevents cohesive- and job opportunities than many states,
awareness a problem for Lincoln blacks self-identity. Traditionally, blacks ness between the two communities. The He said many blacks feel a traditional
blacks, in particular. Stelly says he is a lived in the Malone area, bounded by Malone Center is trying to bridge the commitment to Nebraska but they
man true to north Omaha, but he is 17th, 27th, T and R streets. But UNL gap by sponsoring a "get-to-know- don't hope to get "a piece of the rock."
Malone trip for Omahans. But prob- "We can only be comfortable in this
lems remain. state when the white man doesn't have
"The bloods in Omaha think the to fake liberalism and we don't have to
bloods in Lincoln are either backward, shuffle and sing to belong, he said.
Blatthew Stelly
Matthew Stelly, director of the Malone
Community Center of Lincoln, holds no
illusions about the black minority's
place in Nebraska.
"Nebraska may be the good life,"
Stelly said, "but blacks have been
forgotten in it"
Stelly won't let blacks forget their wilhng to give his all to Lincoln's black began to buy property there to make
role in the struggle either. community. But first, he says, "we have room for city campus growth. Black
"The biggest problem we have in to find ourselves." people are moving out
Lincoln is the lack of an effective arena If we could do that, we would win Lincoln s subtle
"I thought a hundred
pound hail stone or lightning
bolt would come through
the ceiling," Dahl said of the
first time he went to an MCC
service. "I didn't happen,
knnM iini XICO
' 3 U1U I VC KUUS1S w
ever since."
Dahl is not an ordained
minister. He works for the
Lincoln-Lancaster Commis
sion on Human Rights.
The MCC does not belong to the Lincoln Fellowship of Churches.
Steve Evans, executive secretary for the LFC, said he was unaware
of any opposition to the new gay church.
But some local pastors don't want a gay church in town.
"I think it's a farce," said Kenneth Baker, pastor of the
Fellowship Baptists Church. "I think it's a disgrace. I think it's an
insult . . . It's totally of the devil."
God loves homosexuals "just like he loves all sinners," Baker
said. "But for them to say they're starting a Christian church is a
perversion of everything that's right"
Father Peter Gadient, pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, also
is against the MCC.
"I really am not in favor of it. Why would they want to have a
church? We can work with these people in other ways to help their
problem," Gadient said
Roger Sasse, pastor of the Lutheran Student Center at UNL, said
he supports the MCC, but thinks "it's a real tragedy that there has
to be a separate church."
"What I wish is the gay and lesbian folks would help us change
the churches that are, instead of separating," he said.
Besides the MCC, Dahl said he belongs to another fundamentalist
church. He said he considers himself a "conservative and
evangelical" Christian. He said he knows the Bible.
"Whatever their sexual orientation, a Christian is bound to live
in a responsible manner, he said A
I Ana Lowe
racism
I'll I!eV. FOlTeSi M. Stith 10 his face- However, at the same time, most of
Lincoln's blacks were content with janitorial or shoe
Nebraska attracted newly released slaves because of the shining jobs,
growing Union Pacific Railroad and the possibility of In his guest preaching appearances at Lincoln churches
owning cropland. The nation's first black farmer set up just and schools, Stith tries to explain the black situation in a
outside of Wilbur. practical sense. Such as a baseball game.
Most blacks settled in the cities to work on the railroads. "Being black in this city, in this country, has always
When the railroads began to die out, blacks suffered the meant getting up to bat with two strikes," Stith says. "The
most. white man has three chances. But by the color of your skin,
The Rev. Forrest M. Stith of Lincoln remembers those you've already got a strike against you." ,
days through the memories of his father and grandfathers. Stith said the worst times for black people came after
One grandfather, William P. Walker, was one of a handful the Civil War, during the Reconstruction. Worse times may
of farmers given land in Cherry and Dawson counties. All be ahead, Stith said, with the re-election of President
eventually sold out. Ronald Reagan. He said Reagan has proven he doesn't care
"They talk about what the white men did to the for those "without"
Indians,'Stith recalls, "Look at what they did to us. My "We really haven't seen anything yet," Stith said, in an
father had to sell our land in Cherry County for $1 an acre ironic twist of the President's victorious proclamation.
... for 650 acres." "For those blacks who are able to make it on their own,
Stith was born in 1910 in a home on South Ninth Street they may be all right Those who don't have the jobs are
in Lincoln. He is one of the few blacks to graduate before really going to suffer."
19o0 of the University of Nebraska. He used his family s
keepsakes and memories to write two books. The second,
Orange Morgan's 38, 325 Mornings, recounts his great-
granaiamer s asys as aDiacK soioier in me union Army 1 .
curing tne avu war.
His own military career ended in 1948 when he
returned to Lincoln. Stith became an ordained minister in
the Metnoaist uuircn ana stucuea tor nis master s degree w i
in the evenings.
In 1955, Stith became the first black teacher in the
history of the Lincoln Public Schools, teaching history at
Millard Lefler Junior High. He stayed there until 1975 when
he was forced to retire. His time there wasn't easy.
"It was touch and go for a while," he said. "You really
had to keep your eyes open and hope you didn't make
mistakes. I had a principal there . . . who really stood
behind me. She was very, very liberal for those days."
Stith said he was paid the same as other teachers with
master s degrees and that he encountered very little racism
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