Editor Mitchell in the Far West: A Colored Teacher in Mixed Schools

The Planet travels to Omaha to analyze the extent of segregation in their schools, services, and businesses, but discovers that they are advancing toward greater equality.

There are some bar-rooms in Omaha that will not serve colored patrons so we were told, but most of the theatres will accommodate colored people. The hotels discriminate against colored people and so do the lunch rooms. Outside of the professions, there are few colored men engaged in business. Still, the colored people are progressing and those with whom we came in contact were refined and intelligent. They have mixed schools in this city. We met Mis Eulalia S. Overall, colored, who is a teacher in Mason School, Room 4. She has had quite an experience and is the only colored teacher in the mixed schools of Omaha. By her superior qualifications, she has secured a permanent certificate in the public schools. She had some trouble once with a white family, who objected to her, but that passed by and she now instructs white children with no embarrassment whatever and she has won the cordial support of the white patrons. She is tall, about 6 feet, and good looking, a typical western lady and her amiable qualities seem to have made her a general favorite. We left Omaha Thursday morning for Chicago over the Northwestern R.R. bidding Mr. T.P. Mahammitt farewell at the station. We entered the day coach and secured a seat by the window. There was a crowd of white men of the roughest kind and characters, who were returning from the opening of land in Tripp county, South Dakota where the government had been holding a drawing for nearly a million acres of arable land. Omaha was one of the gateways to this section of the country and every available space was crowded. Men cussed and swore. They chewed tobacco and spit on the floor. Soon after the train left the station, three white men passed through the cars polling the passengers as to whom they would support for president of the United States. A tall, six foot powerfully built westerner looked on with satisfaction and whenever a passenger said, “Bryan,” he would smile approvingly, with the remark, “You certainly look good to me.” The poll of the coach in which we rode stood, 27 for Bryan, 16 for Taft and 7 for Debs. There was a call for luncheon in the dining car and later we cast another lingering glance at the white folks across the aisle to our right who were playing cards and cursing in a manner that would have reflected discredit upon a mining camp in the Far West. We came to the conclusion that there was no difference between the lower class of white folks and a similar class of Negroes. They were on the same level and the race of neither did not figure in the equation. For the first time on our journey we passed from a day coach instead of a Pullman to the dining car. We were ushered to a seat by the polite waiters and as we waited for the meal, we gave ourselves up to thoughts of the discomforts of the coach we had just left to the comforts of the one we longed to obtain. We could stand it no longer and upon being told that there was a Pullman Parlor car on the train we hurriedly left the table and sought the porter of the parlor car in questions. “I wish a seat in this car, if you please,” was our remark to the colored porter. “Certainly,” he said. He showed us to a vacant arm-chair. We told him to bring our luggage from the day coach and we returned to the dining car to finish our meal. A few moments later, after having suffered the discomforts of the trip for four hours, we were gazing upon the rapidly changing scenes in Iowa and thinking of days that to us would never come again. We went to the writing desk and wrote several letters on the paper of “The Colorado Special.” Darkness settled down on the outside and when we reached the Illinois state line, we never knew...

“Editor Mitchell in the Far West: A Colored Teacher in Mixed Schools,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 20, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/785.