The Carver Savings and Loan Association (Carver S&L) opened in 1944 as the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

financial institution in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest ...

. Located at 2416 Lake Street next to the historic

North 24th Street North 24th Street is a two-way street that runs south–north in the North Omaha area of Omaha, Nebraska, United States. With the street beginning at Dodge Street, the historically significant section of the street runs from Cuming Street to Ame ...

corridor, it was in the heart of the

Near North Omaha The Near North Side of Omaha, Nebraska is the neighborhood immediately north of downtown. It forms the nucleus of the city's African-American community, and its name is often synonymous with the entire North Omaha area. It is bordered by Cuming S ...

neighborhood, and Omaha's African-American business district. In the 1950s, Whitney Young, then head of Omaha's

Urban League The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...

, worked with the Carver S&L to create a special lending program for prospective African-American home buyers. It was designed to fight the city's segregationist red lining practices, by which banks restricted loans in neighborhoods they thought to be less successful. Minority and immigrant communities were disproportionately affected by these policies, which made it challenging for their residents to obtain loans. Through the Carter S&L program, Omaha's black families were able to buy more homes within three years than they have previously bought in the last decade by using other banks in the city. The former building that housed Carter S&L is noted as important to the history of the neighborhood and to Omaha's African-American history. In 2012, the building became the cornerstone of plans for a redevelopment project to create an arts district on the North 24th Street corridor. The former bank building is being renovated by the

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts is located in the Old Market Historic District of downtown Omaha, Nebraska, at the corner of 12th Street and Leavenworth Street. In addition to an international artist-in-residence program, Bemis Center hosts tem ...

Theaster Gates Theaster Gates (born August 28, 1973) is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he still lives and works. Gates' ...

, and the Rebuild Foundation to be used and operated as an art gallery. Students from

Omaha North High School Omaha North High Magnet School is a public high school located at 4410 North 36th Street in the city of Omaha, Nebraska. The school is a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) magnet school in the Omaha Public Schools district. N ...

and the

University of Nebraska-Omaha The University of Nebraska Omaha (Omaha or UNO) is a public research university in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded in 1908 by faculty from the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary as a private non-sectarian college, the university was originally kno ...

have contributed

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

hours to rehabilitate the area.Pazera, J. (October 13, 2012.
"Students tackle historic project in North Omaha"
, KMTV. Retrieved October 23, 2012.

References

{{Coord, 41.28166, -95.94784, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-SD Buildings and structures in Omaha, Nebraska Landmarks in North Omaha, Nebraska History of Omaha, Nebraska African-American history in Omaha, Nebraska

See also

References