Black Legacy Families, Installment I: The Metoyers
The Metoyers
When it comes to the Legacy of Black Families, the Metoyers have made a lasting impression as entrepreneurs, professionals, community activists, youth service providers and performers.
(Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore. Pictured, the immediate family of Lois (Brown) Metoyer. Lois is in the middle at top row next to her two sisters, Willeen on left and Eleanor on the right. Lanette's maternal grandparents, Preston and Christine, are seated. Taken in Mississippi.)
By Leo Adam Biga
The first Metoyers came to Omaha from the Deep South during the Great Migration to start a new life. Like other Black migrants, they were drawn by a robust railroad and packinghouse labor market. These good-paying, union-protected jobs were Omaha’s equivalent of steel and auto industry jobs back East. Unlike many of their contemporaries, the Metoyers claimed a history of land ownership down South. Their deep Creole, Cane River roots in Natchitoches, Louisiana encompassed plantation slavery, freedom, aristocracy and loss. Bound up in their story is all the complexity and intrigue of their African American and French European ancestry. Adding richness to this gumbo is the Native American (Cherokee) heritage of the Mississippi-based African American family that married into the Metoyer clan.
When Louisiana was still a Spanish colony, a white, French plantation owner named Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer fancied an African house slave named Marie Therese Coincoin. She was already the mother of four Black children. She then bore Metoyer 10 children. He arranged for her to live with him against church and cultural norms before building her a home behind his own. He later set her free with 68 acres to her name. Her keen stewardship and business savvy allowed her to acquire more land. Her tobacco-indigo growing and bear-trapping enterprises allowed her to buy her children’s freedom. The family eventually amassed 12,000 acres.
Over time this tight-knit clan grew into a community-based at their own Melrose Plantation, where they built a church. Maria Therese’s bi-racial children from Metoyer and the progeny that followed were considered Creole. A prevailing caste system entitled them to privilege denied to Negroes, but identity politics limited advancement in general society. Between the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow, the Metoyers lost their empire amidst a ruling culture that could not tolerate wealth in non-white hands. Third-generation Omaha native Ray Metoyer summed up his people’s lost inheritance this way: “Their land was taken from them. That’s the story of many African Americans who thought the South had something for them.”
His grandfather Victor Metoyer and grandmother Rosalie (Gauthier) Metoyer joined family from Louisiana and travel to Nebraska in the 1930s. The same fierce, aspirational spirit that pushed these wayfarers North served them well in their new environs. Within the space of two decades they established themselves as business owners and community leaders. Descendants have built on their elders’ accomplishments to carve out legacies of their own.
A Family Thing
In many ways the Metoyers represent a microcosm of the American odyssey. Bound up in their many intersections with the symbols and sorrows of the American Dream is this nation’s story. If you know the name today it’s likely due to singer-actress Camille Metoyer Moten, who recently concluded her “Christmas in My Heart” concert series at the Omaha Community Playhouse in 2020. Her sister Lanette Metoyer Moore is also a theater performer. Their oldest brother Ray is a veteran award-winning television journalist and younger brother Louis is a noted musician. Books and films depict aspects of the Metoyers’ soap opera Creole past – with its heady brew of taboo interracial relations, colorism, class and property.
For a long time locally the Metoyer name carried cachet. Start with a pair of businesses, Metoyer’s Bar-B-Q and M&M Lounge, on North 24th Street. Victor Metoyer was a Union Pacific Railroad dining car waiter who helped form the Dining Car Waiters Key Club with workmates before starting his own eatery next door with colleague Alton Goode in 1958. When Goode retired, the newly renamed Metoyer’s Bar-B-Q became a strictly family-owned enterprise. Ultimately four generations worked there. An uncle, Felix Metoyer, ran M&M with wife Mary, just down the street from the restaurant. Papa Vic’s son and daughter-in-law, the late Raymond and Lois Metoyer, were a mid-20th century Black power couple with their tall, striking good looks, regal bearings and big community hearts. Both gifted orators, they backed their words with actions.
“They were kind of like the barons of 24th Street,” Ray said of his grandfather “Papa Vic” and uncle Felix.
Lanette’s father, Raymond Metoyer upper left, Uncle Vic Metoyer next him, Aunt Louise lower lef, and Rosalie Metoyer next to her. Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore
Raymond was attending Creighton University when he and Lois became parents to their first-born, Lanette. Ray Jr. soon followed. The elder Metoyer dropped out of college to work in a packinghouse. But he soon found a career as a Boys Town guidance counselor, eventually becoming head counselor. He also worked at the family barbecue. In 1967, he joined Ernie Chambers and other community leaders in forming the Negro School Board, which sought to address long-standing inequities and oversights in the Omaha Public Schools.
Beginning in 1970, Raymond served two terms as Urban League of Nebraska president. He was the first Black native Omahan to serve in that post. He served on the City of Omaha personnel board and was involved in low-income housing efforts through St. James Manor. Though a devout Catholic, he openly criticized church leaders for condoning racism in worship spaces, schools, parishes and neighborhoods. “His was always a voice people listened to in the community,” said Ray Jr., who recalls his father as instrumental in bringing Omaha native Malcolm X to speak at the Civic Auditorium, where young Ray got to meet the activist.
Ray Jr.’s parents took an active part in the civil rights movement. The couple participated in De Porres Club demonstrations for equal employment and open accommodations in the late 1940s-early 1950s. In the early 1960s Raymond was president of the Citizens Coordinating Committee for Civil Liberties or 4CL, which pressed for equal housing and education. He and Lois were both active in Nebraska Democratic Party politics. He worked on campaigns for state senator Edward Danner who held the seat from North Omaha that Ernie Chambers would later win. “Those were some of the things my parents were involved in trying to make things better in North Omaha,” Ray said.
A local radio show, “Open Line,” featured listeners calling in to discuss social issues. Lois Metoyer became a familiar voice. “She was referred to as ‘Lois from North Omaha’ and she had many friends and supporters who listened to her from that,” recalled Ray. Among them, Susan Thompson Buffett, the first wife of investor Warren Buffett. The two progressives, one Black and one white, met through the show and became fast friends who served on a state Democratic Party committee together. “It was a special relationship that blossomed from social justice and trying to fight for the right things,” Camille said. “In today's world, where women have more visible roles in political leadership, I'm sure Mom would be right there with them,” added Ray. His parents were aligned in their political and social beliefs and despite adhering to some traditional notions of male-female roles, they were true partners. “My father believed the man should be the breadwinner and the woman the homemaker, but he still encouraged our mother to be active within the community,” Lanette said. “In everything they participated in she was an equal. If there was a march, they marched together.” Where her father was a diplomat who used humor and reason to get his points across, the normally soft-spoken Lois could be a firebrand. “She was very powerful,” said Lanette. “They complemented each other perfectly.” Though Lois only finished high school, Camille recalled, “Whenever Dad had to give speeches, Mom would write them.” As a couple, Ray said, his parents provided “a sense of direction” for not only him and his siblings but for the Black community. “They just set a powerful example of what you need to do, holding your head up and being proud was how they lived every day. They led by being inspirational examples.”
“They were very confident people,” Camille added.
The Full Measure
The strength the couple modeled became a well of inspiration for their children when they tragically lost their mother to a brain tumor at age 43 in 1972 and their father to gun violence at age 51 in 1979. Lanette and her two oldest children were living with her father in the months preceding his murder. She said he made sure her kids knew the Metoyers were a proud people who didn’t take discrimination lying down. Neither parent lived to see their children fully bloom, but the cornerstone they laid was substantial.
Far from crumbling, their offspring thrived. Drawing on the self-actualization their parents imbued, these inheritors of the Metoyer mystique have found their own indelible niches in the family foundation. “I remember my mother saying when she was dying of cancer, ‘You know you can be anything you want to be.’ I believed it and I’ve sort of lived my life like that,” Camille explained. “A lot of milestones in my life have made me feel like, yeah, I do have that confidence. When I went to audition for things, I never conceded, ‘Well, I don’t think I should go out for that role because that’s not a Black person’s role,’ I just presented myself. Because of that confidence, my parents instilled in me, I was like, ‘I want this role, I’m going to go out for it,’ and more times than not, I got it. My parents worked hard to make sure we had a strong sense of self. They taught us not just aspects of being Black but who we are as people and our place in the world to make a difference. They had a sense of trying to make things right. I really feel like we grew up with that sense of this is wrong and this is what you do to combat or counteract the wrong you see going on.”
“None of us lacked any self-esteem,” Lanette said.
“That is one thing our parents did for us that I’m forever grateful [for].”
Lanette Metoyer Moten in style show (her mom Lois Metoyer also modeled in it. Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore.
Lanette and Ray were in their early 20s, Camille a high school senior, and Louis only 11 when their mother died. Seeing the vivacious, verbose woman waste away and lose the power of speech was sad and traumatic enough, but then the loss of their ambassadorial father in a violent and sudden manner (murdered at the family eatery) delivered another shock. The grieving children leaned into what their parents taught. “When they were snatched away from us so young and so terribly, the courage they instilled in us and the bond we have together as siblings allowed us to deal with the circumstances we couldn't change,” Camille said. “There were rough times for me and I'm sure for my siblings, but the love and connection between us was strong.”
As adults, the four siblings continue leaning into the wisdom and strength bequeathed to them as challenges arise in their lives. A few years ago Camille survived a public bout with breast cancer that inspired her to write a book about the experience. When Ray’s wife Dee died in 1993, he thought about how his father soldiered on after losing the love of his life.
For decades, Camille has stirred audiences with her singing-acting. Lanette is a stage artist in her own right. The sisters memorably starred alongside each other as the real-life Delany sisters in the 2014 Omaha Community Playhouse production of Having Our Say. Music is a family inheritance from Lois, whose singing voice was much admired though she never performed in public. Louis has made his living as a musician since the 1980s. Both his sisters sing and they each have a daughter who sings. “So that’s something our mother left us all with,” said Lanette, who adds that their mother often modeled in local fashion shows. “My mother was stunningly beautiful with her poise, grace and long black hair,” Louis said. “I remember how she cried when she had to shave it all off for her first brain operation. I wear my hair long today in honor of my mother and her Cherokee ancestry. Her beautiful singing voice, full of tone, filled our house. Since I was the youngest and my siblings were at school and Dad was at work, I’d be home listening to her sing along to all her favorite jazz artists.”
Off-stage, the Metoyer sisters worked in management positions at AT&T, where they encountered some of the same glass ceiling barriers to advancement their father spoke out about. Earlier, Camille and her husband, Bishop Michael Moten, senior pastor with One Way Ministry National Community Outreach, served as family teachers at Boys Town. Their tenure there started only weeks after her father’s murder. In keeping with family tradition, both of Camille’s adult children, Mike and Temia, work with youth. Her son Mike is a program director at Right of Passage (formerly Uta Halee) and after working at Boys Town and Youth Care and Beyond, Temia now operates her own day care center – Mimi’s House. “When my husband and I were family teachers at Boys Town our kids were basically raised there,” noted Camille. “They would complain, ‘Why can’t we have a normal life like everybody else?’ and it’s so funny that they both end up working with kids.” Lanette’s gone on to a career with Youth Care and Beyond, where her son, Derek Moore, is chief operations officer. Another son, Gregory Moore. is a manager with HQ Asphalt. Her daughter, Sharan Moore-Bryson, is a nurse. Much as she learned to dream without limits, Lanette impressed on her children their own boundless potential. “They were able to feel they were not lacking in any way. They were made to feel they could do anything.”
Examples of reaching for the heights extended to a paternal uncle, Victor Metoyer Jr., an architectural draughtsman, and his wife, Dr. Marie Metoyer, a psychiatrist (her parents were both physicians), who lived in Vermont. Ray felt emboldened enough to become one of Omaha’s first Black broadcast journalists as a WOWT reporter and weekend anchor. He encountered racism in newsrooms here and elsewhere. In his work with the National Association of Black Journalists, he helps recognize professionals in the field. His daughter continued the family line of working with youth as an Omaha Public Schools teacher until retiring earlier this year. His brother Louis has taught music to youth in L.A. public schools. “It’s like Daddy started something that kind of trickled down to all of us,” Lanette said. Losing their father shook the family to the core. “That was a blow to all of us but for me personally I probably lost my best friend,” Ray said.
After his father’s death, Ray ran Metoyer’s Bar-B-Q. The family patriarch, Papa Vic, had stopped working there in 1985 and passed in 1986. Ray left Omaha that year to pursue his communications career elsewhere. He kept the business open for a time before closing it. “One of the things my dad said to me was, ‘Son, if you get an opportunity to move, you should do it. This isn’t your dream.’ But if Dad was still alive I probably never would have left because I enjoyed being around him that much. I enjoyed working with him. And we had really developed a friendship.” The business was meant to be a family legacy for years to come. “It was supposed to be something we would carry on,” said Lanette. “It’s just unfortunate we never were able to do that.” Since leaving Omaha, Ray has worked for television stations as well as the Black Family Channel and Georgia Public Broadcasting and has produced a documentary on Emmett Till. He lives and works in Atlanta today as content producer-developer through his own Townhall Productions.
Louis cut his musical chops in Omaha with the band Odyssey. Based in L.A. since the ‘80s, he’s played lead guitar on records that have sold 30 million-plus units and won major music industry awards. He toured with New Edition. He’s performed with The 4 Non Blondes, Belinda Carlisle, Lenny Kravitz, Macy Gray, Hilary Duff and Terence Trent D'Arby. His music appeared in commercials, movies and TV shows. He followed his muse where his heart led on his father’s advice. “I moved to L.A. to go to music school. My dad had said, ‘Don’t just bump into stuff on your guitar. If that’s your profession, you should know where all the notes are.’’ He added, ‘You don’t want to be a big fish in a little pond.’ I’m so thankful for his challenge to push myself further.” “Whatever we felt like we wanted to do, our parents supported it,” Camille confirmed.
Another picture of The Browns (Lois’ maiden name), but this time in Omaha. Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore.
In the Thick of Things
Hailing from a family of activists, advocates and doers, the Metoyer children grew up around community meetings (some their parents hosted at home), participated in protests and toiled at the family BBQ. Hard work and community engagement was all they knew. “We didn’t think anything about it,” Camille said. “That was our normal. But it really was abnormal.” There wasn’t pressure to live up to the family name. “My parents were not big believers in making us think we were any type of royalty,” Lanette said. “It was just a name.” Meeting their expectations was another matter. “My parents commanded respect without trying. They struck that sweet balance between confidence and humility,” Ray added.
The Metoyers come in all shades and hues and growing up Lanette said she and her siblings were never made to feel one way or another about skin tone. The first time she recalls race discussed by her parents was when she was in kindergarten. Her family sent her to St. Cecilia Catholic School. “It was very elite at that time,” she said. “They wanted me to have that step up. I was the only Black child there. It did not make a difference. I didn’t feel any type of way. I just absolutely adored it. When it came time for me to go to first grade my mother got a call saying there really were no spaces for me. She was told the archdiocese decided I needed to go to my neighborhood parish school. I was absolutely devastated.”
“Mom and Dad let me know in no uncertain terms it was nothing I had done – that this was something about our race.”
At Sacred Heart Catholic School a nun’s continual mistreatment of Ray escalated when she threw holy water in his face. When word reached his mother, she took immediate action. “My mom swept through the building like a hurricane-tornado. I mean, you could feel this force,” said Ray. “She read them the riot act. That is probably one of the most powerful memories I have of her. Her taking us all out of school was a big deal because my dad’s side of the family were Catholic. There was no coming back from that for the school. That’s the kind of heart and intensity she had. She did not back down. She pulled us out so fast our heads were spinning,” Lanette added.
The youngest Metoyer siblings, Camille and Louis, encountered racism at Burke High School and Laura Dodge Elementary School, respectively. As before, their parents addressed it head-on. When it came to her children, Camille said, the usually placid Lois was a mama bear protecting her cubs. “She didn’t play. She took care of it.” Her father displayed the same instincts. As young children Camille and Louis accompanied their parents at a mass Freedom Now sit-in at City Hall. When they and other protesters were arrested, singing “We Shall Overcome” while led to paddy-wagons, an Associated Press photographer snapped a picture of her being carried in her father’s arms. The image went national on the wires.
By the time Camille and her older siblings were teenagers, they were already veterans of protests. Family discussions at home often revolved around social issues. “We talked about all those things we marched for, Voting rights, equal employment opportunities and one of the hardest things to get changed in Omaha -– open housing laws, which allowed Black people to buy homes outside a certain area we were redlined into,” said Ray. In 1969 the family integrated Maple Village. A pair of Raymond Metoyer’s Boys Town colleagues who were close to the family volunteered to stand vigil. “Both of those men took turns with my maternal grandfather spending the night before we moved in just to make sure the house wasn’t destroyed,” said Lanette. “My grandfather had his shotgun. It wasn’t their fight, but they had no problem putting their lives on the line so we could have a better life.”
Besides some hard stares and the house being egged, no harm came to the family or their dwelling. “Later on some neighbors came over and apologized and cleaned it off,” Ray said. “But that initial reaction from a certain group of neighbors let us know what we were in for.” The family elders were less about confrontation and more about assimilation. “My dad’s parents and mom’s parents were more invested in just trying to make a living and make things better for the family and the next generation,” said Camille. “They were more about how do we establish, how do we get this American Dream, how do we do this thing so that our family can live comfortably. It was my dad’s generation that was more into the social justice.”
Secret sauce
By the ‘60s, the Metoyers were a real presence, The BBQ joint and M&M Lounge were fixtures in a bustling business corridor that helped make the Near Northside a self-contained, self-sufficient community. The Metoyers joined other aspirational families in playing their part in making North O vital. “The North Omaha I grew up in was a great community,” said Ray. “When we lived on the North Side (27th and Manderson) we were surrounded by a number of Black families that had their own homes and had a very solid, stable life. We kind of rose up with each other together in that way. It truly was a ‘village’ and people looked out for each other.”
Metoyer’s Bar-B-Q was a gathering spot for family and community under the watchful eye of Papa Vic. “We all had to work there,” Lanette recalled. “When my grandfather was there we were like on edge because he wanted everything to be perfect. As soon as he would leave we would all be like, ‘Ahhh, now we can breathe.’” But it was his place and secret sauce for his KC-style ribs, brisket and chicken, so what he said, went. “We stayed open until two in the morning on Friday and Saturday because all the bars closed at one,” Ray said, “The place was packed then – the line going out the door. We'd sell more food in that late rush then we had all day. Papa Vic would stand outside after it slowed down to see if any more cars were coming. Some workers would complain, but he said, ‘This is my place and if somebody wants to buy my food, I'm going to sell it to them until I lock the door for the night. That's the difference between being an owner and a worker.’ Later, when I ran the place, I did the same.”
Though his father was a counselor by profession, the family BBQ was his passion, too. Raymond modeled a work ethic grind that his children adopted. “My dad worked at Boys Town during the day and at the barbecue at night. He had some kind of stamina,” Lanette said. “He was truly a working machine,” said Louis, “He was the master of the 20 minute (power) nap, which he taught Ray and I.” “He loved working with boys and helping young men grow up to be better men,” Ray said. “He had an impact on a lot of people. And he loved working at the barbecue and being around people. He loved both things. I fell in love with it the same way he did.”
“My dad's death (fatally shot at the restaurant) had more to do with the business closing than anything else. He was the bridge between Papa Vic and me. He was supposed to take over as Vic slowly retired. Without Dad our plan of succession was wiped out. If Dad had lived, we planned to open other locations. Without him, we were unable to expand.” Business also suffered when the North Freeway expansion displaced North O residents and hindered access to North 24th Street. He reported on the urban renewal project’s early stages in a local doc that predicted its harmful, disruptive effects. “The city was mad at us for that,” he said.
A Metoyer Dynasty
Family dinner with Metoyers and Browns. Lanette's maternal great grandparents are in the picture. Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore.
The Metoyer story includes more Omaha businesses and community connections. Clyde Joseph Metoyer, a cousin of Raymond Sr., had a haberdashery down South and once he came to Omaha with his wife Patricia he worked for some of city’s leading clothing stores. At one point he owned his own shop. His daughter Bobbi Jo had her own apparel store for a time. Her mother, Patricia, opened Simple Simon’s Preschool and expanded it to multiple locations in North Omaha. It’s run today by her daughter Shanta, who also operates Metoyer’s Event Center. Bobbi Jo said Metoyers opening businesses here simply continues a family tradition. “Before they came here they had businesses in Louisiana, so it’s just in the blood, you know.”
Accomplishments weren’t limited to the Metoyer side of the family. A maternal aunt, Willeen Brown, married into a prominent family of medical professionals. She and her husband, Dr. James B. Williams, lived in Chicago. “My uncle Jim with his two brothers and mother had the first Black-owned medical clinic in the U.S. His mother Clara Belle Williams was the first Black American graduate of New Mexico State University. I would travel in my aunt and uncle’s customized motorhome on road trips. Envious whites would ask if my uncle was delivering the motorhome to someone else,” said Louis. “My joy of traveling started then and groomed me for what lay ahead as a touring musician and meeting people who projected their limitations of me.”
Working on the railroad is what brought Victor Metoyer to Omaha after his family had lost all the land and wealth they’d acquired in the preceding centuries. Once Victor and Rosalie set down new roots in Nebraska they hardly ever returned to Louisiana. Succeeding generations in this branch of the Metoyers have also seen little of Louisiana, although Camille did attend Xavier University in New Orleans. Lanette wonders why her immediate family hasn’t trekked to their ancestral homeland. “It’s so strange because there is that rich history. But my grandfather didn’t talk about it much. I think it’s because they lost the plantation. That made him very angry.” She said Papa Vic made no fuss “he came from great stock,” but he rued how their rich inheritance “was stolen from him” and his fellow descendants,“It’s such a sad story.”
Louis did make a 1970 road trip to Alexandria, La. with Papa Vic to visit his grandfather’s sisters. “We drove to Natchitoches, Shreveport, and Baton Rouge down old highways visiting relatives I never met before,” he said. “I saw chain gangs on the side of the road. We went to the Cane River, where I rode a horse with a cousin I’d just met who was 11 years old, too. It was a beautiful sunny day riding next to the river with (Spanish) moss on the trees. Neither Louis nor his siblings have ever visited the Melrose Plantation though they each describe it as a bucket list ambition.
By contrast, their Omaha cousin Bobbi Jo Metoyer has not only visited Melrose Plantation and participated in an annual Metoyer heritage festival there, she’s now relocated to Natchitoches. “I’ve lived in Utah, in California, in Nebraska, in several different places,” Bobbi Jo said, “but when I came here I just felt like this is where I belong, and I never felt that anywhere before. I spend a lot of time on the Cane River. You go through all different kinds of emotions when you visit the plantation. One minute you can be crying, the next minute you can be laughing.” “You can read about it to your heart’s content, but it’s only once you come here and meet the people that it all comes together. Meeting everyone on this side of the family has been just amazing. I keep meeting new relations, finding more information. There’s so much more.”
Mississippi & Louisiana
Mix to form One Big Family
The Browns and Metoyers at a family dinner. Lanette's maternal great grandparents are seated on couch in the middle. Photo provided by: Lanette Metoyer Moore.
The maternal family line has its origins in New Albany, Mississippi where the African American name was Strickland. Like the Metoyers, the Stricklands were outliers as Black land owners. Unlike the family that marriage would align them with, they managed to retain timber-rich holdings in the river Delta. “My great-great-grandfather drew up a document he signed with an ‘X’ that said his land, which was full of timber, could only be sold to another member of the family. This man couldn’t read or write but knew the value of that property and the timber,” said Lanette.
Some Stricklands migrated North to escape Jim Crow. Decades before Raymond Metoyer was killed in Omaha, the Stricklands suffered a violent loss in Mississippi when Lois’s grandfather, the Rev. Andrew Srtickland, was murdered answering the door at his home. It’s thought the Ku Klux Klan might have been responsible. The minister’s wife, Mary Alice, escaped through a back window with her infant daughter Christine in her arms and ran to safety. As a teen Christine came to Omaha with her husband Preston Brown. “My maternal grandparents married very young, so they kind of grew up with their children,” said Lanette. “My great grandmother lived with my grandmother. They called each other ‘sister,’ which I thought was cute, and they fought just like sisters.” Christine and Preston’s daughter Lois proved a bright student and beauty queen who caught the eye of Raymond Metoyer at the Dreamland Ballroom.
When the couple married she added her people’s Delta influences to his family’s Creole flavors. The resulting blend of cultures and ethnicities and their shared ambition and integrity have informed the following generations. The Metoyer-Browns made a tightly-woven, intergenerational family tapestry. “Because Papa Vic was on the railroad, he’d be one week out and one week in,” Lanette said, “Ray and I alternated living with Grandma Rosalie those weeks when Papa Vic was on the road.” Shared meals and gatherings mark fond memories. “When we attended Sacred Heart School there was a time where we didn’t eat in the cafeteria,” Lanette recalled, “We traded off eating at our Metoyer and Brown grandparents’ homes. They lived within walking distance of the school. I think it’s because our parents were short on money. At first, we were like, ‘Why can’t we eat with the rest of the kids?’ But the home-cooked meals were so good, we didn’t want to go back to the cafeteria. “Now that I’m a grandmother I can look back and see what a blessing that was to have them as long as we did.”
Louis found much to admire in his elders. “They were very strong, determined folks. Never a cross word between the in-laws or Mom and Dad saying anything negative about the other’s parents. We all enjoyed each other. We spent joyful times spinnin’ Motown 45’s and dancin’ to great songs.” “We were very close, all of us,” Camille said, “Every single night my mom would talk to both her mother and mother-in-law on the phone. We had family dinner on Sundays at either one of our grandparents’ home. They came from families with different backgrounds but similar goals and values.” “They came to Omaha looking for new opportunities and new challenges,” Ray said, “but they also got a chance to work and build a life. Because of that they were a very close-knit group of people – the men and women both. They were all very dedicated to family. We had four grandparents around all the time, and they were great. It gave us such a sense of peace and strength. We were two separate families, but we were one big family.” The family worshiped, celebrated, and mourned together. Mutual respect and love permeated their lives, though being only human they also had their conflicts, disputes and estrangements. But through it all, their unbreakable family ties always held them together.
Leaving a Legacy
African Americans can seldom document their family history beyond six or seven or generations. The Metoyers can trace their heritage further back due in part to the work scholars, artists and journalists have done researching the Creole-Cane River Metoyers. “I have pride in the fact my family history goes back that far and I can trace our history back that far,” Ray said.
Bobbi Jo echoes others who feel Black history and contributions get ignored, “This is a very sensitive topic,” she said. “I wish that not only my people knew where they came from but everyone could know what African Americans accomplished and what we have to offer to America. But everything is about color, you know. It gets really deep. Once you know your own history, what someone else thinks of you doesn’t really matter because then you’re going to know where you came from and what your ancestors did for this country. We’ve done just as much as anyone has done for this country. That’s where my pride comes from – my ancestors.”
“It is important for everyone to know that our history as Black people in America ranges far beyond what the history books and movies have taught us,” Camille says. “The more we know, the more we can aspire to. The U.S. government has always endeavored to keep America blind about the creativity, intelligence, and the drive of Black people. Stories like our family’s story need to be shared to overcome that propaganda.”
Of the Metoyer Creole background, she said, “It’s a different history than a lot of people have. I respect that. I think Creole subculture is really interesting...it’s a part of my heritage. But I don’t ever want to get wrapped up in that. To me, it’s just another arm of Black America. I don’t call myself Creole, I call myself Black. We were raised that we are Black people.”
The Metoyer women particularly marvel at what their ancestor Marie Therese Coincoin accomplished. “Marie Therese was a shrewd businesswoman, she was such a strong woman. What I admire most about her is how she was driven to be better than what the world handed her,” said Camille.
Though scattered, Camille’s family remains close. “We all got together in the fall of 2019 for a CD release party Camille had,” noted Louis. “I was very honored to perform next to my sister, who we’re all very proud of. There was magic in the room that night, all of us being together again. We share a family text and meet on Zoom once a month now. Next best thing to being there.”
Their parents fought the good fight against injustice, but as the Black Lives Matter movement revealed, there’s a long way to go. Ray Metoyer faced racism last year in Omaha when he and a companion were pulled over by cops at 72nd and Ames while driving back from his high school class reunion.
“Two officers approached my rental car, guns drawn. First they said my tail-light wasn’t working, Then they said it was fine. They were looking for some kind of way to write a ticket. But I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Everything was in order. I answered all their questions. If my attitude would have been different, I could have been George Floyd. It was almost identical to what I went through as a young man in Omaha, when I was often harassed by cops. Fifty years later, the same thing. They just want to mess with you and they’re hoping you do something wrong. My parents would be disappointed those kinds of things are still going on.”
Louis said he’s sure if his folks were alive today “They would most certainly still be making good trouble for people to be respectful towards each other.” Black Lives Matter, Ray said, continues the fight his parents waged. Thus they’d be in alignment with this new civil rights chapter. Descendants draw inspiration from how their elders put themselves on the line for change. “It gives nutrition to my backbone knowing all the strength, dignity and intellect that went into conquering the oppression and obstacles of yesteryear,” said Louis.
As far as legacy goes, Louis summed it up with. “Those who remember my folks and what we all stood for will recall a family that had the courage to test the system, stand up for everybody’s rights, treat each other the way you’d like to be treated, and to call out wrongfulness and discrimination.”
All done with a style and grace that’s made the Metoyers one of Omaha’s leading Black families for going on a century.