We’ve made an impact and changed lives for over 90 years.
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The Urban League movement began in New York in 1910 in an effort to assist African American migrants from rural and urban southern communities in adjusting to societal and economic problems in the north. The Omaha Urban League was founded on November 28, 1927, and immediately started transforming lives.
In the 1930s, our group focused on domestic and common labor employment opportunities. In 1946, our efforts shifted to helping integrate union groups, promote new housing construction for the African American community and to help pass the open-occupancy law.
In the early 1950s, Whitney Moore Young, Jr. served as executive director for the Omaha Urban League (now Urban League of Nebraska) while teaching part-time as one of the first African American faculty members at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His accomplishments in Omaha include the addition of a non-segregation clause to Omaha’s public housing code. In 1961, Whitney M. Young, Jr. became the director of the National Urban League, where he served until his untimely death in 1971.
Due in part to Young’s efforts with the Urban League of Nebraska, in the 1950s and 60s, the Omaha Housing Authority ended racial segregation in its low-rent federally subsidized public housing and agreed to a proposal of 700 new units.
Major accomplishments in the 1960s and 70s included a push to hire more African American teachers in the Omaha Public Schools. These efforts resulted in more teachers receiving an upgraded status to teach at the middle school and high school levels.
Since the beginning, we have remained driven to help create meaningful employment for minorities. That determination helped drive the job landscape in Omaha forever and in the 1980s resulted in African Americans getting jobs as cab drivers, salesmen, elevator operators, in utility companies and more.
Today, our efforts remain unwavering. We will continue to lead Nebraska in closing the educational and socio-economic gaps in the African American community, other ethnic communities and for disadvantaged families.
We support the young people in our community with scholarship opportunities and after school programs. We aim to teach job skills and economic independence through programs like the Career Readiness Boot Camp, Working Wednesdays and more. To receive information on these and other Urban League of Nebraska programs, fill out this form.
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