$25.00
Much of this book is based on S. Edward Gilbert’s excellent research that he did writing The History of the Negro 1855-1900; Sioux City, Iowa.
Description
S. Edward Gilbert (1903-1976) met Mildred D. Brown (1905-1989) in the early 1930s in Sioux City, where her father was a minister. The couple connected around their love of Black journalism and launched a newspaper called the Silent Messenger together. It ran two years. The couple moved to Chicago and Des Moines. In 1933, Mr. Gilbert was the leader of a segregated YMCA in Des Moines. Later in life, his ex-wife Mildred recalled having a hard time renting a storefront in those cities for her husband to operate a drug store. Because of that, Gilbert took a job as a historian for the Works Progress Administration and authored The History of the Negro in Sioux City from 1855-1900, the first publication of its kind. In 1934, he found a space to rent in Sioux City and started a drug store there.
While in Sioux City, Gilbert was credited with organizing several organizations including the Booker T. Washington Community Center, a segregated Boy Scout troop, the Interracial Commission, the Negro Men’s Booster Club and the Negro Youth Council. While there he was also a member of the Black Elks, the Prince Hall Masons and Malone AME Church. A member of the National Pharmaceutical Association, he also established and edited a newspaper called the Silent Messenger.
After a disagreement with the editors over the direction of the Omaha Guide, Mildred and her husband left the Omaha Guide to proudly establish “Omaha’s only Negro-owned newspaper” in 1938. Their newspaper was called the Omaha Star, and it continues today as Nebraska’s only African American newspaper.
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