Edwin R. Overall aka Edwin R. Williams (August 25, 1835 – July 31, 1901) was an abolitionist, civil rights activist, civil servant, and politician in Chicago and Omaha. In the 1850s and 1860s, he was involved in abolition and Underground Railroad activities headed at Chicago's Quinn Chapel AME Church. During the U. S. Civil War, he recruited blacks in Chicago to join the Union Army. After the war, he moved to Omaha, where he was involved in the founding of the National Afro-American League and a local branch of the same. He was the first black in Nebraska to be nominated to the state legislature in 1890. He lost the election, but in 1892, his friend Matthew O. Ricketts became the first African-American elected to the Nebraska legislature. He was also a leader in Omaha organized labor."The Life of Edwin Overall" by Adam Fletcher Sasse for NorthOmahaHistory.com. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
Life Edwin was born into slaveryEx-Slaves Congress. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Wednesday, July 27, 1898. Volume: XXXIII Issue: 300 Page: 2 in Saint Charles County, Missouri, August 25, 1835 to a man with the last name of Overall. Edwin was probably born to a slave woman with the last name of Williams and for the first part of his life used Williams as his last name. As a boy, he worked on a farm, and he moved to Chicago about 1855 where he attended the Jones School. In 1861 he read law in Chicago, but discontinued for financial reasons.The Afro-American League Officers Elected at the Nebraska State Convention to Serve for the Ensuring. Progress (Omaha, Nebraska). Saturday, June 21, 1890. Page: 1 He moved to Omaha in the late 1860s.
In 1859 he married M. L. Blackburn of Cincinnati. Overall had many children: Ida, Grace Victoria, Florence Esther, Norman Murray, Maud, Guy, and Eula. Eula served as a teacher in the Omaha Public Schools from 1898 to 1903, making her Omaha's second black teacher following Lucy Gamble.Federal Writers' Project & Gibson, Paul (illustrator.), The Negroes of Nebraska. United States Work Projects Administration. The Omaha Urban League Community Center (sponsor.), Wooldruff Printing Co. (publisher) 1940 Victoria, Florence, and Ida lived in Kansas City, Missouri where they, too, served as teachers.[No Headline]. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska), Tuesday, May 31, 1887. Page: 1 One of his daughters was a candidate for teacher in the Omaha Public Schools in 1880 but was denied by the board, likely due to her race.[No Headline]. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Saturday, December 4, 1880. Volume: XVI Issue: 47 Page: 4 After the death of his first wife, he married Mary E. Washington about 1887.
In 1875, his father died and Overall was awarded his father's fortune. It was at this time he changed his name from Williams to Overall. With this inheritance and his own businesses he became one of Omaha's wealthiest citizens.Gatewood, Jr, Willard B. Slave And Freeman: The Autobiography of George L. Knox. University Press of Kentucky, Feb 5, 2015, page 225 He invested widely in real estateA Number of Blazes. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska) Friday, September 27, 1889. Page: 1 and was a director and later president of the Missouri and Nebraska Coal Mining Company.Advertisement. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Friday, January 23, 1880. Volume: XX Issue: 87 Page: 1 The company's mine was sixteen miles from Plattsmouth.[No Headline]. New York Globe (New York, New York). Saturday, January 26, 1884. Page: 4
Overall's work brought him into contact with many friends who visited him in Omaha, including Paul Lawrence Dunbar.Paul Dunbar, Poet. Monday, September 11, 1899. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska) Page: 1 His close relationship with the city government and military experience placed him on the reception committee for the visit of Ulysses S. Grant to Omaha in 1879.Omaha to Ulysses. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Sunday, October 19, 1879. Volume: XV Issue: 8 Page: 2 He was also closely aligned with Andrew and Edward Rosewater in various Omaha civic affairs,He Likes Jefferson Square. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Friday, January 25, 1889. Volume: XXIV Issue: 125 Page: 4 as well as with Mayors Bemis and Moores.
He died July 31, 1901, of Bright's disease.E. R. Overall Dies Suddenly. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Thursday, August 1, 1901. Volume: XXXVI Issue: 305 Page: 2 His services were at St. Philip the Deacon and were said by his friend, Father John Albert Williams, and he was buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery.Twenty Postmen There. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Saturday, August 3, 1901. Volume: XXXVI Issue: 307 Page: 2
Civil War
At the age of twenty he moved to Chicago, where he was an outspoken abolitionist. He joined the Quinn Chapel AME church, where he became a member of the chapel's Anti-Slavery association and was involved in the Underground Railroad. He also was interested in the education of blacks. In the early 1860s, he was superintendent of the Bethel Sunday SchoolE. R. Overall. Enterprise (Omaha, Nebraska). Saturday, April 4, 1896. Page: 3 and was an officer of the Chicago Sunday School UnionChicago Sunday-School Union. Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois). Thursday, November 22, 1866. Page: 3 He was also president of the Colored Young Men's Literary Association which met at the Quinn Chapel.
At the outset of the U. S. Civil War, Williams pressed for the inclusion of blacks in the Union Army. On April 23, 1861, Williams chaired a meeting of blacks in Chicago with R. C. Warius as secretary to call for the raising of black troops and the repeal of black laws and resolved to raise money for Chicago soldiers and their families.Meeting of colored Citizens. Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL), April 25, 1861. page 4 [Accessed February 20, 2016 http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1861/04/25/page/4/article/fire-loss-1-no-title]
When the governor of Massachusetts obtained permission to enlist blacks to fight in the civil war in early 1863, Overall was appointed superintendent of the western divisions. He served as recruiting officer for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry, including Sergeants John H. W. Collins and Joseph D. Wilson of Company H in the 54th, and offered his services to Illinois governor Richard Yates to raise a company to join the United States Colored Troops.Letters from Overall (then going by Williams) and Yates are available at the Chronicling Illinois website here and here as of February 21, 2016
On April 27, 1863, Williams played a prominent role in an assembly of African-Americans at Quinn's Chapel in Chicago organizing a call to arms by blacks in Chicago and led by Joseph Stanley (president), John Jones, Theodore Sterrett, Rev A. Hall, Rev. E. McTosh (vice presidents), Lewis B. White, and John Byrd (Secretaries). Williams was a member of the resolutions committee along with H. J. Maxwell, Jno. E. Carter, R. M. Hancock, and William R. Bonner, and spoke to the organization of his own desire and the desire he saw in many African-Americans to fight for the Union. At the end of the meeting, Williams was appointed to the committee on recruiting along with H. J. Maxwell, L. Isbell, J. Early, and E. H. Walker.
Post-War Chicago After the war, Overall continued to work for the advancement of blacks and of civil rights. On October 16, 1866, he served as chairman of the Chicago delegation to a "convention of the colored Americans of the State of Illinois" at Galesburg, Illinois. The convention took place concurrently with the Convention of Men of Color in Albany, New York, and the two conventions communicated by telegram during their assemblies.the Convention in Albany was led by M. B. Cass, William Rich, Jermain Wesley Loguen, and William H. Day The convention sought to discuss the educational, political, and legal limitations faced by blacks in Illinois and to express the desire of blacks to be given full political rights as citizens, particularly the right to vote and to participate fully in legal proceedings. Williams, along with Lewis B. White and George L. Thomas, were the Corresponding Committee making the initial call to the meeting. William Johnson was named president of the convention and Williams was on the Ways and Means committee, the Committee on Resolutions, the Committee on Suffrage, and the Publishing Committee to publish the proceedings of the convention. In the Committee on Resolutions, under chairman Joseph Stanley, spoke for the rights of blacks to vote, to form stock associations, to attend public schools, and to purchase land. Williams was chairman of the Committee on Suffrage, who recommended the creation of a State Central Suffrage Committee to press for black electoral rights.
Civil rights in Omaha
In the late 1860s Overall moved to Omaha, where he continued his civil rights activism and civic involvement. When he arrived, Omaha schools were segregated and education for blacks was very poor. In 1868, he led in a fight to end the segregation and in 1869 the system ended. In 1869 he received an appointment to the office of general delivery clerk for the post office by J. H. Hellum, making him the first black mail carrier in the state and the only black man to hold a government position in Nebraska until the 1880s.An Angry Colored Man He is Angry at the Republicans for Telling His Race So Many Lies. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Wednesday, January 1, 1879. Volume: XIV Issue: 68 Page: 2 Overall briefly resigned from the post in 1879He Wants Something and Claims That Republicans as Well as Republics Are Ungrateful. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Friday, August 15, 1879. Volume: XIV Issue: 258 Page: 8 to focus on his business activities, but soon was reinstated[No Headline]. Omaha World-Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Friday, February 22, 1889. Page: 3 and continued to work for the postal service until two weeks before his death.
In 1871, he organized the first literary society in Omaha, then known as the Progressive Age Association. Overall helped found the successor group, the Golden Link Literary club in Omaha closely associated with the A.M.E. Church. The club's meetings became an important gathering place for Omaha African Americans. In 1882, the club celebrated the seating of John R. Lynch to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi after a long legal battle. Members included Dr. W. H. C. Stephenson (then president), M. O. Ricketts, Abraham W. Parker,father of George Wells Parker W. H. Washington, Rev. R. Ricketts, E. S. Clellans, J. Johnson, C. C. Cary, and Overall's wife.Loud for Lynch the Colored People Celebrating the Seating of the Representative. Omaha Herald (Omaha, Nebraska). Wednesday, May 10, 1882 Volume: XVII Issue: 163 Page: 8