Once Upon a Time in Omaha: A Prodigal Son Returns to Reactivate his Hometown
by Leo Adam Biga
Since returning to his hometown of Omaha after decades away as a national political insider, Preston Love Jr. has branded himself as a civic engagement and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) champion in the metro.
Preston Love Jr, continues to make waves in politics and community empowerment. (All photos courtesy of Preston Love Jr.)
Love, an adjunct professor in Black Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, first made his mark upon his return in 2006 by launching the North Omaha Voter Participation Project. The next year he inaugurated the Hungry Club community forum at Big Mama’s eatery. Within 10 years, he self-published his book, Economic Cataracts: A Chronicle of Efforts to Remove the Obstacles of Urban Community Engagement and Economic Inclusion.
The Participation Project became the Black Votes Matter Institute of Community Engagement in 2016 with its ubiquitous yard signs and last year he changed the name again to 4Urban Institute for Urban Development to reflect a mission that is broader than voting.
In 2018, he led the first of his annual Black History Tours to Southern civil rights landmarks. With his sister Portia Love he authored a children’s book, Your Bridge to History, to promote Black history among youth.
His involvement in the social-political fabric makes sense given his background as an advisor to former mayors Andrew Young in Atlanta and Harold Washington in Chicago and as national campaign manager for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid, as well as other campaigns around the country.
Initially, public service did not call to Love. This oldest son of the late Omaha music icon, Preston Love Sr. gained his own notoriety as a star high school and college athlete. (He’s a Nebraska Black Sports Hall of Fame inductee.) He left Nebraska and sports to follow a fast-track rise as a junior executive at IBM before becoming a computer sales entrepreneur.
“In my early life my focus and mission was all about myself – in athletics, in corporate America and in my own business venture,” he said. “In all of those roles it was all about personal gain, not community gain.”
The start of it all
Love was living in Atlanta, “ground zero of the civil rights movement,” when the computer store he opened with great fanfare went under. Fellow Omaha transplant Nate Goldston, who built a successful food service business in Atlanta, helped change the trajectory of Love’s life and career when he used connections to bring him to the attention of Andrew Young’s mayoral campaign team.
Young had been part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle before getting elected as a U.S. congressman from Georgia. Former Georgia governor and then-president elect Jimmy Carter appointed Young as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. By 1979 Young was back on his home turf running for mayor.
“I became his driver,” said Love, literally chauffeuring Young to various functions. Eventually, he earned a promotion from driver to commissioner of planning. “During that evolution of time and friends and associations, I was transformed into another person. From the mountaintop I saw poverty and despair – I really saw it. I’m sure I must have seen it before, but (now) I saw it with my heart, not my eyes.”
Love had come of age in the civil rights movement and emerged a model of African-American upward mobility, breaking barriers along the way. But it was only when he joined Young and other veterans of battles for equal rights he saw the light.
“I was traveling with the mega people whose whole life work was that, and I just changed. That was the beginning of two things at once – my political involvement and my social involvement. I am proud to have been a part of the history of the Black political evolution after the 1965 Voting Rights Act.”
As his new purpose manifested among movers and shakers, he began indulging in the excesses of the good life without considering the consequences.
“I was a very successful person and probably to some degree arrogant. I thought I was more powerful than any alcohol or drug. I dismissed the possibility of addiction. But I became addicted. It took me through several years of unraveling my focus and my life. My rock bottom meant I did some things I wish I wouldn’t have done.”
Regaining the best version of himself meant working a series of odd jobs, including trash collector and waiter.
“It was part of my transition from a person who was self-centered to a person who, in effect, saw the world the way it is for so many.”
Love addressing parents and guardians of students participating in the civil rights tour he leads.
His transition reached completion when he became churched again after years disengaged from organized religion.
“A series of circumstances brought me to church and ultimately I was saved and began to strip myself of the addiction the hard way. I would try to stop, then make a mistake, then try again. You win a battle, lose a battle, and finally win the war. All that experience I’m surely not proud of, but I’m not ashamed. I’m probably a better person from having experienced that phase of my life.”
Coming home
Despite all his experience, coming back to Omaha after years apart meant starting from scratch in terms of finding his niche. That humbling was hard on his ego.
“It was not easy because I arrived from the mountaintop back to my wonderful, beloved North Omaha and I found the community and its leaders traveling about 50-60 miles an hour and I’d come back going 75 miles an hour – and driving my own car. A big portion of the community didn’t know me as a hometown guy. They knew my dad, they knew the name, and I’m coming back like a hotshot. I was not readily received and so it wasn’t like I fit right in.”
The baggage he carried posed another barrier.
“A lot of people knew about my troubles. I had all kinds of reactions to that. I still have residuals. It took me awhile to earn my own space in my hometown and for people to accept me on my merits.”
He’d tried coming back before, in the early 1990s, but he found the long shadow his father cast hard to shine in. His permanent move back in 2006 coincided with his father’s death and finding sobriety. It took some time to figure out where he could make an impact.
“I took voting because it was a slice nobody was doing. There were no ride shares to the polls, no concerted, grassroots-based community-organized effort that brought us all together and talked about the value of voting, so that’s what became my mission.”
He also served as a field director-field advisor for various campaigns in and out of Nebraska.
His passion for participatory democracy is explained by his own life straddling the era when many Blacks were denied the right to vote, along with equal education, employment and housing, and the new opportunities that came with the federal Equal Rights and Voting Rights Acts. He’s concerned by the disparity between his generation that religiously exercises the right to vote and younger generations that he feels don’t value voting and therefore don’t participate.
“This generation has never known denial. They take voting for granted – both to vote and not to vote.”
He notes African Americans have lost “a perceived unification of struggle and purpose,” adding, “So why should we expect there would be a practical unification of voting?” His concern is how “to get all generations of color to see there is a common need to vote. We do have common interests to vote but that has gotten lost in today’s world. That’s why I’m out there doing my thing, being available.”
Since reclaiming his hometown, he’s sought to empower rank and file Black citizens to leverage their collective influence in holding elected officials accountable by asking hard questions and casting ballots.
“Now what we have in the community is a lot of young African American leaders running for office, engaging, doing voter registration. What I wanted to happen is happening. Don’t get me wrong, we still have a voting problem. But we now have activists around voting and civic engagement we didn’t have when I got back here.”
He lists VREM (Voter Registration Education and Mobilization), the Nebraska Democratic Party, Heartland Workers Center, the local League of Women Voters and the Omaha NAACP as among the players making GOTV and voter education a priority.
A new paradigm of leadership and a new role
Love values his independence but along the way he’s learned to delegate and collaborate. In terms of elections, he said, "We're advising people how to do it in more of a facilitator role. I’m the old wise man or elder sought for counsel."
“My role is to try to plant the seeds, water the seeds, and pick the fruit of our leadership.” He’s actively “looking for ways,” he said, “to make my points.” Thus, he started a new community forum – Live Black City Hall at Emery’s Cafe. That, along with his books, the UNO course he teaches, the op-ed pieces he writes for the Omaha Star and Omaha World-Herald, his public speaking and panelist appearances and the civil rights tours he leads are all part of his 4Urban platform, which he calls “my bully pulpit.”
In 2018 he had a seat at the first ever North Omaha Political Convention, which he notes was organized by some of the very young Black influencers he sees emerging in the community.
Just as he tries impressing upon folks the importance of the vote, he does the same with the census.
“If we go uncounted or not counted to our maximum in the census then we go unfunded or underfunded in all the things important to us – healthcare, education, political boundaries, and more. We are not being a smart community if we don’t understand the relationship between things.”
Love, who performs a one-man show channeling the late great preacher and statesman, Adam Clayton Powell, sees himself as an evangelist for people doing their part in the democratic process.
“I’m out just like John the Baptist in the wilderness preaching responsibility.”
As a one-man think tank, he also curates, commissions and publishes research and studies “for practical urban development initiatives.”
Call for unity
Though African Americans have increasingly made their presence known by serving in ever more elected offices locally, he’s dismayed by the rancor that separates Black citizens and Black representatives.
“We need to return to the day when the community rallied behind their leaders, irregardless of their imperfections. We got results because we knew and the opposition knew we were unified in our efforts. We need to return to that mentality.”
Ironically, the upset caused by the COVID-19 pandemic during the 2020 general election brought about cooperation among leaders who are normally divided.
“Once the virus hit, everybody was laying aside differences to try to work together for the betterment of all. Even now I’m seeing leaders working with leaders who don’t normally do so.”
“Woe to the leader caught sitting on the sidelines in this crisis.”
Love accepting the Distinguished Citizen Award by the West Point Society of Nebraska
Gauging the Black vote historically, Love sees an electorate that rallies around perceived threats or benefits to their quality of life.
In the 2020 general election he got his wish that eligible Black voters vote as a bloc to deny President Donald Trump a second term. Everything the divisive chief executive did in rhetoric and policies to make people of color more vulnerable, created a mandate to vote him out of office. He believed Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis was reason enough for Americans of any persuasion to vote against him. He celebrated District 2 going blue for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and the added Electoral vote it earned the Democratic ticket.
Locally, Love is encouraged by an increase of Black candidates in each recent election cycle. In 2020 some two dozen Black candidates ran for or declared their candidacy for offices, ranging from mayor to city council to county commission.
“I do see it as a trend. That’s our future. We’ve got African Americans running for things we’ve been scared of before (Viv Ewing for University of Nebraska Board of Regents and Alisha Shelton for the U.S. Senate). We ain’t scared no more.”
When NOISE interviewed Love in early 2020 he’d sworn off any new bids for office himself after trying for the Metropolitan Utilities District Board of Directors. But he changed his mind when the Nebraska Democratic Party enlisted him to run as a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Ben Sasse, who won re-election. In a statement issued by Love following his defeat, he called on Sasse to work more deliberately in building bridges with communities of colors, especially the African American population in North Omaha, and to represent all of Nebraska.
Love’s encouraged by young Black influencers making waves in the community with their social entrepreneurial activities. He admires the tenacity and persistence of local activists leading the charge in the current Black Lives Matter social protest movement that coalesced after the George Floyd and James Scurlock killings.
“I defer to the energy, intelligence, drive and vision of this movement’s voices,” Love said.
“My role as an elder is urging those voices to seek counsel from wisdom. But I say, ‘Go for it.’”
He feels the unrest unfolding today is “having the necessary effect,” though he cautions that sustaining Black solidarity is necessary if long-standing injustices are to be meaningfully addressed.
The summer civil rights tour he leads with 40 to 60 area young people was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic. He expects the tour will happen in 2021. He believes the tour helps youth who participate to become more engaged in the community and to develop leadership skills. “I’ve seen that happening in front of my eyes.” Love regards the donation and grant-funded tour as one of the most satisfying things he does.
Not done yet
Pushing 80 now, Love shows no signs of slowing down, even after suffering a stroke two years ago.
“I could not stand or walk when I had the stroke. I’m doing great now. The same God that gave me victory over drugs and alcohol is the same God that got me through the stroke.”
Love credits his wife of seven years, Martha Parker-Love, with making it possible for him to achieve his late-life successes. “She is my friend and counselor and lover, and my soulmate in our Christian life.”
He is at peace with who he has evolved into becoming after ups and downs.
“I have new ideas about things all the time and that keeps me going because I want to get them done. Occasionally I’m up all night with a new idea. Sometimes that idea will end up being something you read about down the road.”
His latest endeavor finds him leading the transition of the former Love’s Jazz & Arts Center, named after his father, which has been closed for nearly a year, The struggling center’s embattled relationship with the city, which held the lease on the building it occupied, came to a head last fall. That’s when the city ended the lease and placed management of the building and the center’s reorganization in the hands of the North 24th Street Business Improvement District.
In cooperation with the city and the BID, Love is moving forward with putting together a new board, which he will chair, and curating a new slate of programming with community partners. He will serve as interim executive director of the newly renamed, The Love Center (incorporated as the Preston Love Sr. African American Cultural Center). The BID will share space in the building, which will require a reconfiguration of the space.
“My interest in the project has two parts,” Love said, “One part is the continuation of my dad’s legacy. The second is giving North Omaha what it wants and. needs – a center that focuses on African American culture in all its aspects. That’s important. My goal is to have it up and running by Juneteenth. That and Native Omaha Days this summer will be key events for the new Love Center.”
His penchant for reinventing himself is what made him rebrand his work under the 4Urban name. His mission is to be “a thought-leader in developing urban communities through the four pillars of: community engagement, economic growth, leadership growth and Black Votes Matter (Get Out the Vote) initiatives.”
Love has also been leading the most recent effort to free Edward Poindexter from prison after more than 50 years of incarceration. His team is asking the public to send letters to the Pardons Board advocating for a commutation of sentence for Poindexter so he can be released on parole. In April of 1971, Poindexter and David Rice, later known as Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, were convicted of and sentenced to life in prison for a crime to which they consistently pleaded innocence— the death of Omaha Police officer Larry Minard who was killed by a suitcase bomb explosion in a vacant North Omaha home. Because of their status as former Black Panthers and leaders of its successor, the National Committee to Combat Fascism, Mondo and Poindexter were immediate suspects. Mondo died in prison in 2016.
Poindexter was Love’s childhood friend in the Logan Fontenelle housing project where they grew up. His commitment to justice for Poindexter is both personal and driven by a demand for compassion. “He has been punished enough,” said Love. In February, Love’s team purchased a billboard on I-480 North at the Martha Street exit with the simple message: Freedom for Ed. Information about the campaign is posted on a website Love hosts, www.FreePoindexter.com.
“You are the accumulation of all the experiences you have – the great ones, the horrible ones, the tragic ones, the mistakes you make, the struggles you have. If you can survive that and still be standing, you have joy because all those things make you who you are. That accumulation of things has made me able to make more of a difference now. I used to think I was all of that and I look back and say, wow, ignorance was bliss.”
Visit 4urban.org.