Segregated city
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1/28/2010
The Supreme Court ordered the Omaha Public Schools to desegregate in the '70's. The resulting white flight to the Millard Public Schools suburb quadrupled Millard's size in two years. Millard put up a plethora of temporary buildings to accomodate the boon until they could build the new schools. North Omaha and downtown were further segregated as it continued to be African American dominated as it is today and continues to be the highest crime rate area in the city. The vacuum in the tax base for OPS led the district to attempt annexing Millard. But the Millard contingent forced the Unicameral to create a "Learning Community" which in essence, spread the responsiblity for desegregation to all the surrounding schools districts. The Learning Community has limped along in attempts to allow inner city youths to attend the suburban schools. Millard of couse, has very few openings for inner city youths. In fact, the Millard graduation gatherings are whiter than a Klan rally. The disparity continues today and Omaha is no closer to solving the race issue than it was in the'70's. South Omaha has become a bastion for Latinos and the downtown area is being made over to the wishes of the major corporation - Conagra, World-Herald, UP, etc. I lived in Arkansas for five years and the segregation in Omaha is as bad as any place in the south.
Bp | Bellevue, NE