Riley Wilson has worked with and trained community members, activists, and law students in legal observing since completing training in legal observing with the National Lawyers Guild.
After his arrest as a legal observer at a 2020 protest, Riley and other plaintiffs successfully sued the City of Omaha, Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer, and Omaha Police Captain Mark Matuza, leading to changes in the Omaha municipal code and Omaha Police Department operating procedures to better protect protesters. Riley has previous experience working at the ACLU of Nebraska and the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Nebraska while studying at the Creighton University School of Law. Before law school. Riley Wilson has a law degree from Creighton University. In this interview, we will talk about the over policing of People of Color and the lack of community accountability in the Omaha Police Force, and the challenges many face in dealing with their excessive budgets and lack of transparency with data for the community.
During the past few years, there has been a slow creep toward fascism. There are historical and current examples that are mirrored in Masha Gessens book The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. This book was the winner of the 2017 National Book Award in Nonfiction. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards and the winner of the New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award. In a recent January 2026 community meeting in Lincoln, NE, the word fascism came up several times as descriptive of what is occurring in this country.
Karen Abrams and A’Jamal Byndon will discuss the book's highlights and its implications for current issues. A’Jamal has hosted and conducted many book discussions and will offer examples of how to focus on content, analysis, and key points in the book. Karen, who is also aware of the creeping fascism, will offer her insight and what we can do to challenge those behaviors and systems that want to dance on the fascism table. We invite participants to obtain a copy of the book or listen to an audiobook so they can point to specific pages or chapters for their analysis.
Our goal is to increase community members’ social justice engagement through reading, so that they are not passive recipients of chatter and fat-mouthing that leads to non-action.
Over the past years, we have witnessed the brutal genocide as practiced by the state of Israel against Palestinian women, children, and innocent men. The United States, with its history of practice similar behaviors against Native and African Americans, is an expert with its support of this practice in the Middle East, particularly in Gaza.
We have Zane Zents, who grew up in West Omaha and is Jewish. He has been involved in the Palestinian coalitions and Jewish Voice for Peace groups to help stop these unlawful activities. We also have Zaeem Hag, a Pakistani American immigrant, who is with Nebraska for Palestine, which is also involved in dealing with the issue.
Sexual offenses in Nebraska: What can be done for restorative justice?
Jeanie Shoemaker Mezger, an advocate for prison reform in Nebraska, talks about the dysfunctional laws, lack of proper information dealing with the sexual registry laws, and poor engagement of community members. Jeanie also works with the Nebraska Criminal Justice Review, a publication that allows various residents to share their perspectives on ideas and issues related to the dysfunctional criminal justice system. The School to Prison pipeline is part of the industrial prison complex that we are attempting to deconstruct antiquated practices to help folks who have served their time not be stagnated at the bottom of the ladder, because of draconian laws.
Book & Article Reviews for Black Nebraskans during Black History Month
The Nebraska Prison System: The Prison Industrial Complex and its lack of Reforms: Willis Sanders
Willis Sanders, a long-term resident of the Nebraska Industrial Complex, discusses his role in the school-to-prison pipeline, which creates negative opportunities for reform. Although a lot of folks make bank off the criminal justice system, the police department, the public pretenders, and most of all the County Attorney, with its racist mentality, create a no-win situation for many inmates of color. There is a hole that inmates are put in for no apparent reason, and there is little to no advocacy by the state, since they are part of the money-making scheme. It is apparent they hate African American males by how many are pushed and maintained in that system. Meanwhile, we are less safe when they return because the money-grubbing entities involve others in how to avoid the high level of recidivism in Nebraska. African American males make up less than 5 percent of the population, yet 28 percent of the inmates in the Department of Prisons. What can we do about it?
The White Man’s Burden is Heavy on The African Woman
Why Blackness is Hated
Botswana Wildlife Poaching Crisis and Social Justice
Racism Resistance
The Robert M. Spire Founders Service Award serves as the ACLU of Nebraska’s lifetime achievement award.
This year, we are proud to be honoring A’Jamal-Rashad Byndon, for decades of service, mentorship, and unwavering commitment to equity and justice in Nebraska. Born in Hastings and raised in a family of 14, A'Jamal is a lifelong advocate for People of Color and low-income families. He is one of the founding members of Omaha Table Talk, an organization that, at its height, brought over 600 residents in Metro Omaha together for dinners at various homes and community sites. He has taught multicultural and Black Studies classes at the University of Nebraska and Metro Community College, started the first diversity course at Nebraska Methodist College in Omaha, and even developed the first academic poverty class at the UNO Honor program and taught it three times before it was discontinued. He was also one of the first African Americans to serve on the board of the Latino Center of the Midlands, then known as the Chicano Awareness Center, over 30 years ago. He is currently serving as the chairman of the Board of the Movement in Omaha for Racial Equity, and continues to provide staunch advocacy for system accountability, transparency and equitable use of resources, especially through his work to ensure access to legal services in under-resourced communities in North and South Omaha, as well as across the state to ultimately end Nebraska’s “legal deserts”
A’Jamal served two years in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Botswana after graduating from UNL, was the Public Policy Senior Director at Catholic Charities for 25 years, and currently has 4 adult children with college degrees!
The ACLU of Nebraska is happy to honor A’Jamal’s lifetime of service with this award!
Selalelo Mmankgodi Women’s Grafted Fruit Tree Project
MORE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
We are working on a report on the effectiveness of these civil rights organizations, such as the city’s Omaha Human Rights and Relations Department, in addressing their mission. It’s come to our attention that they have little to no empirical data on the success of addressing racism, and historical discrimination and, most of all, engaging communities of Color with the transformation of the problems into reasonable solutions. When a public fund organization does work have little or any social capital with oppressed African Americans and other People of Color, it is time to ask for change. What good are third-string quarterbacks who can’t play in the Superbowl of anti-racism? Can we point to one success story and whom they helped in the valley of the struggle that can offer testimonials to outcomes?
Got any questions regarding anti-racism, race equity, or community advocacy but have never seemed to be able to get any answers? Or incidents handled by Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission , Nebraska Urban League, or any government funded organizations. -
Text or Email A’Jamal at 402-212-7083 or email moreinfo@moreomaha.org
Mail + Donations via Check
For all mail, or donations via check please mail to:
2016 Fowler Ave
Omaha, NE 68110
402-212-7083
EIN: 27-0666026
