Sam Walker Collection

The collection of Sam Walker includes posters, fliers, LPs, and ephemera documenting Omaha organizations, events, and people in the 20th and 21st centuries particularly related to activism, music, and culture. Topics covered include anti-Vietnam War protests, protests against the demolition of Jobbers Canyon, Omaha sheet music, Wounded Knee legal defense fund, Omaha music and performers, Al Smith, jazz vocalist Karrin Allyson, and the Omaha centennial celebration. The fourteen LPs in the collection were produced by Omaha church, high school, university, Boys Town, and other musical groups. The collection includes a sample ballot for the 1967 Omaha vote about whether to merge the Municipal University of Omaha with the University of Nebraska, which when passed created the University of Nebraska system.

Material September 25, 2018: The photographs taken by Sam Walker in circa 1969-1978 are primarily of the October 15, 1969 Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam protest in downtown Omaha with single photos of Omaha advocate for redeveloping downtown Leo Kraft, the Butternut Coffee building in the Old Market with “History Omaha” banners visible on a light pole, and Peter Hoagland, who would later be a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, attending an event for supporters in Elmwood Park. The original photos of the 1969 protest were returned to the donor after digitization. Also included in the accession was a program for the April 22-23, 1976 Conference on Historical Perspectives on American Criminal Justice sponsored by the UNO Department of Criminal Justice and UNO Department of History.

New material added October 22, 2019: A variety of ephemera including political campaign advertisements, Bunny Hop at the Music Box (1938), Banquet of Independent Grocers and Meat Dealers of Omaha (1941), sheet music for "The All American City Omaha" by J. Frank Terry (1958), and program for the conference Police and Use of Force in America (1980).