This entry is only passingly about books, and contains a LOT of pedantic information about my city. Read at your own risk.
So as I've mentioned before in previous spaces, my friend Dusty just opened an art/mixed media gallery in North downtown Omaha (idiotically known as NoDo). I spend a lot of time in this part of town, as Saddle Creek Records has a complex on the next block that includes an art house theater, an awesome bar, and a coffee shop that I love. Formerly, both Axiom and the Saddle Creek Complex were located on Webster Street, about 20 blocks from my abode. They are now located on Mike Fahey Drive.
In our part of town, most of the streets are named for important early Omahans, Nebraskans, or heroes of the Civil and Plains Indians wars. Running south to north, in what I consider my general neighborhood, the streets go Dodge (named for Grenham Dodge, a Civil War general), Davenport (I admit I don't know what this is named for, though I presume it's the same thing/person as the town of Davenport, NE), Chicago (self-explanatory), Cass (another Civil War general, and also the street I live on), California (see "Chicago", above), Webster (see below), Burt (named for our first territorial governor), and Cuming (another Civil War soldier).
As you can see, there's a somewhat common theme for the streets in this part of the city, which dates back to around the turn of the 20th century.
I'm upset about the name change from Webster to Mike Fahey. Really upset. Not like, throwing things upset, but upset enough to complain about it at parties to Dusty and write blog entries about it. And here's why!
John L. Webster was, in the 1870's, the lead attorney for Union-Pacific railroad, which was a gigantic corporation--the importance of the railroads in forming this part of the world really can't be understated. It was a big-ass fancy job. In 1876, he worked pro bono in a landmark civil rights case, Standing Bear v. Crook. He was on the side of Standing Bear.
You might remember Standing Bear from your American history class, but you probably don't. A brief rundown: Standing Bear was a member of the Ponca tribe, which was a non-nomadic tribe living in Northeast Nebraska (near the present day NE-SD border, on the banks of the Niobrara River). During the time period when the US government thought it was fun to fuck with Indians for no particular reason, the Poncas were rounded up and forced to march to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in what's now know as the "Ponca Trail of Tears." While in OK, Standing Bear's son died, and his deathbed wish was to be buried at home on the Niobrara. So Standing Bear and his family turned around and marched all the way back home, a distance that's about 12 hours by car, in the dead of winter. They made it about as far as Omaha before Standing Bear was arrested and thrown into jail at Fort Omaha by General George Crook. Standing Bear sued Crook for rights of habeas corpus, i.e. that he was unlawfully detained, both by being confined to a reservation, and in the prison. He won his case, in no small part because of the awesomeness of his attorneys, John Webster and Andrew Poppleton (which is the name of the last street I lived on!) And in so winning, he was declared a human being by the Nebraska court system.
Obviously, this is a pretty big deal. It's considered one of the most important court cases in American Indian history, which you can imagine has seen a whole hell of a lot of court cases. And it's also very important for civil rights for all American citizens, in that it reaffirms that you can't be randomly thrown into prison or confined to a landed space, like an Indian reservation, without just cause.
This is all laid out beautifully and intricately in a wonderful book called "I Am a Man" by Joe Starita. The title is taken from Standing Bear's speech during the trial, as translated by Susette "Bright Eyes" LaFlesche:
"My hand is not the color of yours, but if I pierce it, I shall feel pain. If you pierce your hand, you also feel pain. The blood that will flow from mine will be the same color as yours. I am a man. The same God made us both."
I saw this man speak last winter in the home of General Crook, which is now a museum at Fort Omaha. Terrific topic. Terrific book. Required reading for anyone interested in Plains Indian history or minority rights.
The story ends very sadly: Standing Bear's brother Big Snake was later killed by soldiers for attempting to make the same journey home, and in the 1960's, the Ponca tribe was dissolved by the federal government, and the reservation sold off to farmers. They were reinstated about 10 years ago, but the damage that the dissolution did will probably never be fully healed.
Mike Fahey was the mayor of Omaha from 2001-2009. He was born in KC and attended college at Creighton University. He gained prominence in the city by starting an insurance company. He gained notoriety for the following:
1. Quote wikipedia: "In October 2006 the City of Omaha Safety Auditor Tristan Bonn submitted a report which detailed Omaha Police Department officers' aggressive, rude and unwarranted traffic stops, which unprecedentedly involved African Americans and other people of color.[2] Within a week Fahey fired her, as he called Bonn "insubordinate" for submitting the report.[3] The incident has caused ire within North Omaha [i.e. the black part of town] particularly.
2. "Fahey has been criticized for his decision to build a new baseball stadium in downtown Omaha as a means to securing a long-term contract with the NCAA to keep the College World Series in Omaha. As a result of this, a group of Omaha residents circulated a proposal to recall Fahey. This petition drive failed, with the Recall Fahey campaign collecting only 8,202 of the required 21,734 signatures."
GUESS WHERE THIS BASEBALL STADIUM IS LOCATED. OH RIGHT, ON WEBSTER STREET, right behind the Saddle Creek complex. It's under construction as I write this, and is currently in the spooky rebar skeleton stage.
It's also been alleged that part of the reason Fahey wanted the stadium in that part of town (which is undergoing a swift gentrification process) was because he himself had bought up a fuckton of land by the river, and then resold it to the city, making an absolute killing. This is all common knowledge for the citizens of Omaha.
A link from the Omaha World-Herald about the street name change:
http://www.omaha.com/article/20100118/NEWS01/701189954
So tell me. Which one of these men deserves to have a street named after him?
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