page_title: African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska
section_title: Historic newspapers
hierarchical_section_title: African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska / African-American culture / Historic newspapers
caption_attribution_description: Omaha Star building taken from the SE corner of 24th &amp; Grant St in Omaha
context_page_description: 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.
  In 1894 black residents of Omaha organized the first fair in the United States for African-American exhibitors and attendees. The 2000 US Census recorded 51,910 African Americans as living in Omaha. In the 19th century, the growing city of Omaha attracted ambitious people making new lives, such as Dr. Matthew Ricketts and Silas Robbins. Dr. Ricketts was the first African American to graduate from a Nebraska college or university. Silas Robbins was the first African American to be admitted to the bar in Nebraska. In 1892 Dr. Ricketts was also the first African American to be elected to the Nebraska State Legislature. Ernie Chambers, an African-American barber from North Omaha's 11th District, became the longest serving state senator in Nebraska history in 2005 after serving in the unicameral for more than 35 years.
context_section_description: There have been numerous African-American newspapers in Omaha. The first was the Progress, established in 1889 by Ferdinand L. Barnett. Cyrus D. Bell, an ex-slave, established the Afro-American Sentinel in 1892. In 1893 George F. Franklin started publishing the Enterprise, later published by Thomas P. Mahammitt and edited by his wife, Ella Mahammitt. It was the longest lived of any of the early African-American newspapers published in Omaha. The best known and most widely read of all African-American newspapers in the city was the Omaha Monitor, established in 1915, edited and published by Reverend John Albert Williams. It stopped publishing in 1929.
  George Wells Parker, co-founder of the Hamitic League of the World, founded the New Era in Omaha from 1920 through until 1926. The Omaha Guide was established by B.V. and C.C. Galloway in 1927. The Guide, with a circulation of over 25,000 and an advertisers' list including business firms from coast to coast, was the largest African-American newspaper west of the Missouri River through the 1930s.
  Today, African-American culture in Omaha is regarded as being anchored, in large part, by The Omaha Star, founded by the late Mildred D. Brown and her husband S. E. Gilbert in 1938. Brown is believed to be the first female, and certainly the first African-American woman, to have founded a newspaper in the nation's history.  She managed the paper for the rest of her life. Since 1945 the paper was the only one representing the black community in Omaha and the only black paper being printed in the state.  Today the paper has a circulation of more than 30,000, is distributed to the 48 continental states, and is being managed by her niece.
caption: The historic office of the Omaha Star
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