The Omaha Bus Boycott of 1952-54

“If our boys can drive jeeps, tanks, and jet planes in Korea, within the battle to save lots of democracy, make democracy work from home. Make it work in Omaha. …… I say to you, your Honor, the Mayor, if the tram firm is not going to rent Negroes as drivers we prevail on you to take away the franchise of the bus firm.”

— Mildred Brown’s Speech to the Omaha Metropolis Council and Mayor, June 17, 1952

When Mildred Brown, cofounder of the main Black newspaper in Omaha, The Omaha Star, made that impassioned plea to metropolis officers, she sought to construct a bridge between the Black neighborhood and white metropolis officers. Her speech, dismissed by the town officers, was totally coated by The Star.

The Omaha World-Herald gave Brown’s request and the difficulty of discriminatory employment comparatively much less consideration – then and all through the 2 years the boycott occurred. The white-owned paper’s editors offered two sentences about her feedback beneath the headline “Membership Asks for Tram Driving for Negroes.” This account appeared on web page 7, overshadowed by ads.

Over the span of the boycott, each papers printed a few dozen tales every, particularly addressing the boycott. Nevertheless, the Star’s tales have been longer, extra detailed, and so they typically appeared on the paper’s entrance web page. The Star additionally included common updates from the DePorres Membership which was the native civil rights activist group that orchestrated a boycott of The Omaha & Council Bluffs Avenue Railway Firm from 1952 to 1954 with Brown as their spokesperson.

The World-Herald “didn’t advocate for this [Black] neighborhood as a lot, and it in all probability didn’t appear related to them primarily based on their notion of what was related to the plenty,” stated Terri Sanders, the present writer of the Star.

The Omaha Bus Boycott of 1952-54, because it was nicknamed, was formally introduced on the Omaha Star’s entrance web page in April 1952 beneath the headline “DePorres Membership Declares Boycott.” The DePorres Membership urged residents of Omaha to not use streetcars operated by the railway firm till Black males might develop into drivers.

These streetcars differed from as we speak’s buses in that they ran on rails like a practice on a monitor. For a lot of Black residents of Omaha, they have been a vital technique of touring round Omaha.

Regardless of a driver scarcity nationwide following World Battle II and the Korean Battle, the railway firm wouldn’t enable Black males to work in something however upkeep positions. As recorded in Historical past Nebraska, the administration contended that white girls can be unsafe with Black drivers.

The World-Herald’s first point out of considerations concerning the firm’s discriminatory coverage appeared within the transient point out of Brown’s feedback to the council. In contrast, the Star reported on the difficulty 5 months earlier, on January 31, 1952.

Because the boycott proceeded, the Star reported that the DePorres Membership distributing handbills across the metropolis to tell the general public of the corporate’s discriminatory practices. Underneath the headline, “Retailers Again DePorres Membership Boycott Protest,” the Star on Might 2, 1952, reported on how companies distributed the identical handbills to their clients and posted them of their retailer home windows.

In distinction, the World-Herald’s protection centered on the tram firm’s funds and quoted metropolis officers on their methods for making earnings. As an example, the World-Herald reported on the corporate elevating its streetcar fare by 5 cents to equal 18 cents in an try to extend earnings as ridership declined.

Because the Star reported, the DePorres Membership inspired companies to provide 18 pennies for many who couldn’t keep away from utilizing the streetcars. The penny protest hindered the drivers as a result of counting the fares on the finish of every shift took longer, in line with Sanders.

The Star noticed its advocacy of the boycott and intensive protection of it because the duty of a neighborhood paper – because it outlined itself. “It at all times has been, at all times can be,” Sanders stated.

The Star has at all times centered on points affecting the North Omaha space, not like the World-Herald, Sanders stated. Certainly, on the time of the boycott the DePorres Membership held its common conferences within the Star’s workplaces, reflecting its function in advocating for, not simply reporting on, the Black neighborhood.

Dirk Chatelain, a World-Herald reporter who wrote a historical past of Omaha’s Black neighborhood, “twenty fourth & Glory,” pointed to a scarcity of minorities on workers on the paper within the Nineteen Fifties and an “institutional bias in favor of the established order. Minority views typically received neglected,” he stated.

“Most incidents have been coated from purely public official standpoint, and I feel that in hindsight, that was a serious weak spot that was possibly not malicious, however I feel was positively a violation of objectivity,” Chatelain stated.

Because the boycott moved towards success, the World-Herald and the Star differed in pinpointing the decision as properly. The World-Herald famous in July 1954 that the corporate employed three Black males as drivers. It reported a month later that an anti-discrimination clause was put in place within the metropolis’s road railway franchise settlement to remove bans on Black drivers completely.

The Star reported on the hirings as properly after which prominently reported on September 10, 1954, that the DePorres Membership formally introduced the tip of the corporate’s hiring discrimination in Omaha.