Free Radical: Ernest Chambers, Black Power, and the Politics of Race

Images

Funeral of Vivian Strong at the Greater Bethlehem Temple in Omaha (July 1, 1969). Reprinted with permission from the Omaha World-Herald. An aerial view of North 24th Street in Omaha during the uprising that followed Strong’s death (June 30, 1969). Reprinted with permission from the Omaha World-Herald. (above) Chambers arrested by Omaha police (c. 1960s). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (below) Chambers (left) cuts hair in Dan Goodwin’s Spencer Street Barbershop with Bill Armstrong and Goodwin (far right) (February 1968). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. Chambers’s victory celebration after he was elected to the Nebraska State Legislature (November 5, 1970). Photo courtesy of the Omaha Star. (above) “Happy Birthday Senator Chambers.” North Omaha salutes Chambers after his first session in the Unicameral. Chambers and Mrs. Jacklyn Chambers (both seated) with brother Eddie Chambers standing at the microphone (July 1, 1971). Reprinted with permission from the Omaha World-Herald. (below) Chambers and Senator Terry Carpenter (1974). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (above) Chambers, Senator John DeCamp (left), and farmer Virgil Taylor (center) survey a Nebraska farm. Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (below) Chambers and son David in the Nebraska Statehouse (January 22, 1979). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. Barbara Kelley and Chambers lead a protest after the fatal police shooting of Sherdell Lewis, Kelley’s son (1975). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (above) Lincolnites register to vote in order to be eligible to sign a petition for an investigation of Lewis’s death (1975). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (below) Chambers takes the oath of office again (January 1985). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (above) Chambers makes an anti-apartheid speech behind the student union at the University of Nebraska (October 12, 1985). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (below) Chambers and Mel Beckman look at a replica of the electric chair used at the Nebraska State Penitentiary (February 5, 1976). The chair was given to Chambers by anti–death-penalty activists, and remained a conversation piece in Chambers’s office in Lincoln for decades. Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. Chambers’s T-shirt, bearing the caption “Reagan Hood: from the needy to the greedy,” was designed in response to President Ronald Reagan’s welfare reforms that cut benefits to low-income households (May 29, 1987). Photo courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. North Omahans organize a demonstration on the steps of the Douglas County Courthouse in response to the initial “not-guilty” verdict in the Rodney King police assault case in Los Angeles, California. Chambers held a placard that read “Injustice and Racism Reign in the U.S.” (May 1, 1992). Reprinted with permission from the Omaha World-Herald. (above) This cartoon by Lincoln Journal Star artist Paul Fell is one of scores of caricatures of a legislature beaten by Chambers’s legendary prowess at statecraft. Courtesy of the Lincoln Journal Star. (below) Chambers and two new friends (left to right) Rodney Jones and Matt Cannon at the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. (October 16, 1995). Photo courtesy of the Chambers Collection. (top) North Omaha residents stage a mock funeral as part of a campaign to stop police killings of unarmed citizens. Photo courtesy of the Chambers Collection. (middle) Cynthia Grandberry and Nicole at the author’s house in Lincoln, Nebraska, May 6, 2003. Author’s photo. (bottom) Chambers speaking at the United Nations Conference on Public Investment and South Africa. (left to right): George M. House, American Committee on Africa; Senator Chambers; Ambassador B. Akporode Clark, Nigeria, Chairman, United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid; Senator Jack Backman, Massachusetts (others unidenti fied) (June 12–13, 1981). Photo courtesy of the Chambers Collection. ...