UNO Black Studies Department Celebrating 50th Anniversary, Pays Tribute to the Omaha 54
By Elle Love
Front page of The Gateway after the students’ arrest. Image credit: UNO Repository, “Student Unrest Archive”
The University of Nebraska at Omaha Black Studies Department celebrates its 50th birthday this year. Part of this year’s celebration was a tribute to the Omaha 54, a group of 54 Black students who were arrested in 1969 for staging a sit-in. Chief among the protesting students’ demands was greater student input in future Black Studies curricula. The sit-in, led by Black Liberators for Action on Campus (B.L.A.C.), was staged at the office of UNO’s then-Chancellor Kirk Naylor. Two years later in 1971, UNO’s Black Studies program was born.
The first of this year’s commemorative events was held on July 28th. It started with Chancellor Joanne Li, Ph.D. paying tribute to the Omaha 54 and their work towards equity, equality, diversity, inclusion, and justice. Li, the first female and Asian American Chancellor in UNO’s history addressed the crowd saying, “With the Omaha 54, I see paths of immense courage and personal sacrifices that paved the way for Black students at UNO. In our students, researchers, and educators, I see a present dedicated to producing and sharing knowledge that gives us an understanding of the progress being made for us, all of us.” Li said. “The Omaha 54’s impact did not end with the launch of the Black Studies Department. The launch of the Office of Latino Studies, Native American Studies, The Goodrich Program, Women Studies, and other programs that came soon after, gives us a deep understanding of other cultures today and allows us to move through time.”
Michael Maroney, one of the Omaha 54, remembered a group called the Afro-American Council of Action (AACA) which organized several protests including a teach-in at the Department of History Dean’s office in 1967. Students of the AACA asked Ernie Chambers, who was not yet a senator but a known community leader, to represent them and to put pressure on the university to respond to the concerns of Black students, including the call for Black history courses, equal rights and inclusion. “We were only 19 to 20 years of age at the time, and we asked Ernie to come and represent the concerns about Black history,” Maroney said.
The administration’s response to the teach-in was to send a white professor to Philadelphia, to take a Black studies course over the summer, and then come back to UNO to teach the course. This infuriated many of the students.
The sit-in leading to the arrest of the 54 students, was promoted in part by a failed dance that B.L.A.C. organized. The dance was held on campus, so should have had the support of campus staff and music equipment, but because Black student organizations weren’t recognized as official student groups at the time by the university, the dance lacked even a basic sound system, resulting in an essentially a musicless dance. The group was also required to pay for their own security for the dance. Michael Maroney told the crowd at the commemorative event, “We said, ‘Let’s not protest a dance, but let us protest inequity, racism, and the lack of Black recognition on this campus’ ”.
After the upset from the dance, Maroney said B.L.A.C. gathered to create a list of demands and to reach out to other students to engage in the protests. On Friday, November 7, the students walked to then-UNO Chancellor Kirk Naylor’s office to provide their list of demands and returned on Monday, November 10 for a response. The students had connected with community leaders and organizations like the Urban League of Nebraska, NAACP, and Ernie Chambers to prepare their course of action. “When we marched over to his office [the Chancellor] on Monday, lo and behold, he told us what we didn’t want to hear,” Maroney said. “We said, ‘Until we get a response that is acceptable, we weren't gonna go anywhere,’ and he politely asked us to leave, to which we gladly said no.” When campus security asked them to leave, the students declined. A riot squad from the Omaha Police arrived. Maroney added that one Black police lieutenant did his best to de-escalate the situation.
“It was my intention not to leave unless I left with the rest of them, which I did.”
-Dr. Catherine Pope at the recent commemoration.
Image credit: Originally published in The Gateway and archived in UNO’s “Student Unrest Archive”
“He asked us to leave and what we did is, we sat down and kept sitting, and after a while, he told us if we didn’t leave, we would be arrested. We weren’t going to leave, and we knew we were gonna get arrested,” Maroney said. “Since there were twice as many males [as] females in the (Omaha) 54, what we asked is that the males walk [on either side of] the females as we walked out, for protection,” said Maroney explaining how the group walked out together after being arrested.
The students were released from jail around 9 p.m. that evening.
Dr. Catherine Pope, the first person of color to be crowned Miss Omaha and one of the Omaha 54, remembered her experience at the sit-in. She was told that she needed to steer clear of anything related to the civil rights movement, but she was inspired to stand up for equality by her mother, who was a civil rights advocate. Pope was told that not only could she possibly lose her scholarships, but any privileges associated with her title Miss Omaha.
“That was a very traumatic time for a young girl, I was only 18-19 years old at the time,” Pope said. When Pope and the other students waited inside of Naylor’s office for the police, officials asked her discreetly if she would like to leave. “I stood my ground, and it was my intention not to leave unless I left with the rest of them, which I did,” she said. A year later, The 1970 Report and Recommendations from the AD HOC Committee on Student Demands and Grievances cited a lack of communication between the university officials and the student body. The report also said that “the black students’ grievances and concerns were real enough” and that “three of their six ‘demands’ involved not black or white students, but in the interests of all UNO students,” [sic].
A publication from UNO’s Black Studies Department in full swing circa 1980. Image credit: The UNO Repository
UNO Black Studies Department Chair Dr. Cynthia Robinson and UNO Criss Library Director of Archives and Special Collections Amy Schindler honored the Omaha 54 and their descendants with certificates and keepsakes in honor of the stand they took all those years ago. “This wouldn’t have been possible without the Omaha 54. They got arrested, they got fingerprinted, they went to jail, they had to be bailed out. We are here tonight to honor that sacrifice and that activism,” Robinson said, “Personally, I came to this university to major in Black Studies specifically, and there would not have been a department of Black Studies for me to major in if it were not for the Omaha 54.”