Omaha Star

The Omaha Star is a newspaper founded in 1938 in North Omaha, Nebraska, by Mildred Brown and her husband S. Edward Gilbert. Housed in the historic Omaha Star building in the Near North Side neighborhood, today the Omaha Star is the only remaining African-American newspaper in Omaha and the only one still printed in Nebraska. It may be the only newspaper in the United States started by an African-American woman.

History

The first issue of the Omaha Star was published on July 9, 1938 at their offices at 2216 N. 24th Street in North Omaha. Five thousand copies were printed and sold for ten cents each. With the banner "Joy and Happiness", the Star featured positive news about the black community in North Omaha, Nebraska. Celebrating positive African-American families, role models and accomplishments, the Star quickly became a pillar of the North Omaha community. By 1945 it was the only black newspaper remaining in Omaha, the state's largest city.

In the 1950s the Omaha Star won national respect by reporting the Omaha African-American community's perspectives on local and national news. Readers were encouraged to vote and run for office. The DePorres Club, an early youth-led Omaha-based civil rights group founded in 1947, met at the offices of the Omaha Star in the early 1950s after Creighton University kicked them off campus. As publisher, Brown used pressure to persuade advertisers to accept blacks in more positions. Her coverage of civil rights and riots in the 1960s earned her commendations from President Lyndon Johnson.