Ophelia Clenlans | |
|---|---|
 Ophelia Clenlans in 1901 | |
| Born | c. 1841 Platte County, Missouri, U. S. |
| Died | February 12, 1907 (aged 65–66) Omaha, Nebraska, United States |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse | Emanuel S. Clenlans |
Ophelia Clenlans (c. 1841 – February 12, 1907) was a civil rights activist and journalist from Omaha, Nebraska.
Clenlans was born a slave in about 1841 in Platte County, Missouri, and came to Omaha. Clenlans married Emanuel S. Clenlans and they had one daughter, Laura (married name of Craig). [1]
Clenlans was appointed a member of the executive board of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in 1896. [2] She was also a prominent member of the Omaha Colored Women's Club led by Ella Mahammitt. [3] She was a prime mover or the organization of the North and South Omaha Colored Woman's club. She was treasurer of the Nebraska chapter of the Ruth Corps, an Omaha religious group, and an officer of the Prince Hall Order of the Eastern Star. [1]
She was an outspoken activist for racial equality. In 1901, she wrote in the Omaha World-Herald about a debate over whether black women should be allowed to join white Women's Clubs throughout the country: "I belong to the old slavery days. I know what it is to suffer, and I know what it is to feel grateful. I am grateful to my white sisters for their assistance in many ways, and I want them to understand that we only desire to learn of them that we may be better enabled to help ourselves and our families.[...]" "Who is responsible for the white blood in black veins, but the whites themselves, and who can say but what black blood flows in the veins of many a woman whose skin would cause the rose to blush? Did the blacks do it? Were they the ones that caused the color of the negro to change? Shame on such hypocrisy. Shame on a woman who is afraid to take another woman by the hand and say, 'God bless you in your noble work.'". [4]
She also wrote in the World-Herald about interracial marriage: "As to love between the two colors, that is a matter open to discussion, yet to my mind, love is a God-given instinct, over which no man or woman has control.[...] Intermarriage with the whites is last in their thoughts, but intellectual equality they have a right to expect, and who has a right to deny them this boon?" [4]
Clenlans died on February 12, 1907, of cancer [5] and pneumonia. Her funeral was at the St. John's AME Church [1] and she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska occurred mostly because of the city's volatile mixture of high numbers of new immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and African-American migrants from the Deep South. While racial discrimination existed at several levels, the violent outbreaks were within working classes. Irish Americans, the largest and earliest immigrant group in the 19th century, established the first neighborhoods in South Omaha. All were attracted by new industrial jobs, and most were from rural areas. There was competition among ethnic Irish, newer European immigrants, and African-American migrants from the South, for industrial jobs and housing. They all had difficulty adjusting to industrial demands, which were unmitigated by organized labor in the early years. Some of the early labor organizing resulted in increasing tensions between groups, as later arrivals to the city were used as strikebreakers. In Omaha as in other major cities, racial tension has erupted at times of social and economic strife, often taking the form of mob violence as different groups tried to assert power. Much of the early violence came out of labor struggles in early 20th century industries: between working class ethnic whites and immigrants, and blacks of the Great Migration. Meatpacking companies had used the latter for strikebreakers in 1917 as workers were trying to organize. As veterans returned from World War I, both groups competed for jobs. By the late 1930s, however, interracial teams worked together to organize the meatpacking industry under the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA). Unlike the AFL and some other industrial unions in the CIO, UPWA was progressive. It used its power to help end segregation in restaurants and stores in Omaha, and supported the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Women labor organizers such as Tillie Olsen and Rowena Moore were active in the meatpacking industry in the 1930s and 1940s, respectively.
Rowena Moore was an African-American union and civic activist, and founder of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation in Omaha, Nebraska. She led the effort to have the Malcolm X House Site recognized for its association with the life of the national civil-rights leader. It was listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Nebraska register of historic sites.
African Americans in Omaha, Nebraska are central to the development and growth of the 43rd largest city in the United States. Black people are first recorded arriving in the area that became the city when York came through in 1804 with the Lewis and Clark expedition and the residence of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable who lived at Fort Lisa for an extended period in 1810. There were also enslaved Black people at the Church of Latter Day Saints Winter Quarters in 1846. The first free Black settler in the city arrived in 1854, the year the city was incorporated.
Josephine Silone Yates was an American professor, writer, public speaker, and activist. She trained in chemistry and became one of the first black professors hired at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Upon her promotion, she became the first black woman to head a college science department. She may have been the first black woman to hold a full professorship at any U.S. college or university.
Harrison J. Pinkett was a journalist and civil rights activist in Washington DC and then a lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska. As a journalist, he was the head of the so-called "Press Bureau" and often used the bureau's collective pen name, "P.S. Twister". In 1907, at the recommendation of friends in the NAACP, he moved to Omaha where he frequently worked in civil rights. He served as a first lieutenant in the 92nd Infantry Division in World War I and frequently defended the rights of black soldiers.
Millard Filmore Singleton was an African-American political leader and civil servant in Omaha Nebraska. He was an officer in the Omaha Colored Republican Club and the Omaha branch of the National Afro-American League. He held posts as Justice of the Peace, storekeeper in the United States Internal Revenue Service, recorder of deeds for the city, and as bailiff of the municipal court.
John Albert Williams was a minister, journalist, and political activist in Omaha, Nebraska. He was born to an escaped slave and spoke from the pulpit and the newspapers on issues of civil rights, equality, and racial harmony. He was a highly respected minister, journalist, and civic leader. He served on many committees and boards among Omaha's black community and in the Omaha and Nebraska Episcopal Church.
Lucinda (Lucy) Anneford W. Gamble or Gambol was a teacher and civic leader in Omaha, Nebraska. She was the Omaha Public Schools' first black teacher, teaching at Dodge School and Cass School from 1895 to 1901.
Thomas P. Mahammitt was a journalist, caterer, civil rights activist, and civic leader from Omaha Nebraska. He was owner and editor for the black weekly, The Enterprise, Omaha's leading black paper at the turn of the 20th century. He was also an active leader in the Masons and the Boy Scouts and was named "Omaha's most distinguished Negro citizen" in 1934.
Ella Lillian Davis Browne Mahammitt was an American journalist, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist from Omaha, Nebraska. She was editor of the black weekly newspaper The Enterprise, president of Omaha's Colored Women's Club, and an officer of local branches of the Afro-American League. In 1895, she was vice-president of the National Federation of Afro-American Women, headed by Margaret James Murray, and in 1896 was a committee member of the successor organization, the National Association of Colored Women, under president Mary Church Terrell.
Edwin R. Overall aka Edwin R. Williams was an abolitionist, civil rights activist, civil servant, and politician in Chicago and Omaha. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was involved in abolition and underground railroad activities headed at Chicago's Quinn Chapel AME Church. During the U. S. Civil War, he recruited blacks in Chicago to join the Union Army. After the war, he moved to Omaha, where he was involved in the founding of the National Afro-American League and a local branch of the same. He was the first black in Nebraska to be nominated to the state legislature in 1890. He lost the election, but in 1892, his friend Matthew O. Ricketts became the first African-American elected to the Nebraska legislature. He was also a leader in Omaha organized labor.
Cyrus Dicks Bell was a journalist, civil rights activist, and civic leader in Omaha, Nebraska. He owned and edited the black newspaper Afro-American Sentinel during the 1890s. He was an outspoken political independent and later in his life became a strong supporter of Democrats. He was a founding member of the state Afro-American League and frequently spoke out against lynchings and about other issues of civil rights.
Ferdinand Lee Barnett was a journalist, civil rights activist, politician, and civil servant from Omaha, Nebraska. He was founder and editor of the newspaper The Progressive, which ran from 1889 to 1906 and served for a time as deputy clerk in the county court. He was elected to the Nebraska State House of Representatives in 1926.
George F. Franklin was a journalist and civic leader in Omaha, Nebraska, and Denver, Colorado. He owned and published two African-American newspapers, The Enterprise in Omaha, and The Denver Star in Denver. He was active in civil rights and was a member of the Nebraska branch of the National Afro-American League.
The history of African-Americans in Omaha in the 19th Century begins with "York", a slave belonging to William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition who came through the area in 1804, before the city existed. African-Americans have lived in the Omaha area since at least 1819, when fur traders lived in the area.
John Lewis was a hotel keeper, musician, and civil rights activist in Omaha, Nebraska. He was proprietor of the Lewis House in the early days of Omaha. In 1879, he organized a brass band which was a fixture in African-American events in Omaha in the 1880s. He was active in the Nebraska State Convention of Colored Americans, a part of the Colored Conventions Movement and involved in Republican politics in Omaha.
W. H. C. Stephenson was a doctor, preacher, and civil rights activist in Virginia City, Nevada, and Omaha, Nebraska. He was probably the first black doctor in Nevada and worked for the rights of blacks in that city. He was noted for his efforts in support of black suffrage in Nevada at the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. He helped found the first Baptist church in Virginia City. He moved to Omaha in the late 1870s and continued his medical, religious, and civil rights work. He founded another Baptist church in Omaha, and was a prominent Republican and activist in the city.
Victor B. Walker was an American soldier, political activist, lawyer, civil rights activist, police officer, saloon owner, journalist, and gangster in the Old West, particularly in Omaha, Nebraska, and in Denver, Colorado, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Before coming to Omaha, he was a Buffalo soldier on the frontier, and when he first arrived in the city, he worked as a police officer. For a short time, he owned the Omaha saloon, The Midway, a center of gambling and criminal activity in the city. As well as a working as defense lawyer, he worked for civil rights and was a member of the Omaha Afro-American League, a civil rights organization in the city.
Emmanuel S. Clenlans was an American civil rights activist and postal worker in Omaha, Nebraska. Clenlans was born about 1841 in Washington, DC. He married a woman named Ophelia and they had a daughter named Laura . In 1876, Clenlans was a part of the Nebraska Convention of Colored Americans, where he was on the committee on resolutions, and in 1879, Clenlans was a part of a meeting organized by Cyrus D. Bell with Dr. W. H. C. Stephenson, chair and Clenlans, secretary to express the political views of the Omaha black community. H. W. Coesley, Bell, and Gabriel Young played prominent committee roles in the meeting. The meeting passed resolutions against the unilateral support of blacks to the Republican party. In spite of this, he was a delegate to the state Republican convention in 1888. In 1890, he was a part of the forming of the Nebraska branch of the National Afro-American League, and was part of the committee that wrote the constitution of the state branch.
The Enterprise was an African American newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, published from 1893 to 1914. Originally edited by George F. Franklin, the paper changed hands and was edited by Thomas P. Mahammitt for the bulk of its life. Compared to its contemporary African American paper in Omaha, the Afro-American Sentinel, it focused less on faith and culture, and had a more cautious view of war. The paper spawned the creation of a competitor, the short-lived Progressive Age, and after the paper folded, the Mission Monitor was expanded to fill its void.