Edward Danner (February 14, 1900 – January 1970) was a butcher and state legislator in Nebraska. A member of the

Nebraska state legislature The Nebraska Legislature (also called the Unicameral) is the legislature of the U.S. state of Nebraska. The Legislature meets at the Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln. With 49 members, known as "senators", the Nebraska Legislature is the smal ...

from 1963 until his death in 1970, he represented

North Omaha North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the ea ...

in the state senate. The only African American state senator in Nebraska at the time, he advocated for civil rights and equal protection under the law. He was a Democrat.

Personal life

Danner was born in Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1900. He settled in Omaha.

Career

Danner worked as a butcher in South Omaha for Swift & Co. He was a field representative and a vice president of the

United Packinghouse Workers of America The United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), later the ''United Packinghouse, Food and Allied Workers'', was a labor union that represented workers in the meatpacking industry. Origin as the PWOC Background Between the mid-1800s and mid- ...

, Local 47, which represented laborers in the meat packing industry. Danner was a Nebraska state senator beginning in 1963, representing

. He was the only

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

senator during the civil rights era. Many of the legislative issues Danner worked on included bills decriminalizing interracial marriage and working to create laws to have fair housing enacted in Omaha. In June 1963, Danner spoke at Nebraska's first civil rights march in Lincoln. Danner died in office in 1970. Governor Norbert Tiemann appointed

George W. Althouse George W. Althouse (August 6, 1895 – November 21, 1981) was a Nebraska state senator representing North Omaha in the Nebraska Legislature. He was born in Roanoke, Missouri. Althouse, a Republican, was appointed to fill the vacancy in the Nebr ...

to serve the remainder of his term.

Personal life

Edward Danner had a child in San Francisco before he married. Danner married Emogene Danner. He had nine children.

References

External links

Interview with Anna Danner
about her brother Senator Edward Danner, Nebraska Black Oral History Project, digitized by Archives and Special Collections, University of Nebraska at Omaha Libraries; original held by History Nebraska. African-American state legislators in Nebraska Nebraska state senators 1900 births 1970 deaths People from Guthrie, Oklahoma 20th-century American politicians {{Nebraska-politician-stub