(OMAHA, Neb.) Eight School of Journalism reporters and two MavRadio producers team up to share the facts on Omaha’s public transportation system. The city of almost a million residents can trace its divided neighborhoods back to surprising details in FDR’s New Deal. The series airs here on our website, YouTube and the MavRadio podcast.
Omaha in Transit is a three-part series investigating the importance public transportation and the role it plays in the growth, economically and geographically, of any American city. To fully address the function reliable public transportation plays in Omaha, our reporters couldn’t ignore the nearly hundred-year-old legislation passed by the U.S. federal government in 1933. The consequences of redlining are still wildly pronounced in Omaha.
Residents in these neighborhoods experienced arguably three “Red Summers.” The first in 1919 when an African American man, Will Brown, was falsely accused of assaulting a white woman and subsequently lynched by an angry mob. The second, in 1966, when an off-duty white police officer shot and killed 19-year-old Eugene Nesbitt, an African American man. Finally, in May 2020, tensions poured onto the streets once again as the nation protested what they said was police brutality and structural racism.
The voices of these Omahans highlight a story of a city divided.
Executive Producer: Jodeane Brownlee
Studio Director: Mark Dail
Creative Consultant: Conner Brownlee
