Charting Our Path: Celebrating 50 Years of Black Studies (1971-2021) is open to the public on the first floor of Criss Library. The exhibit shares the history of one of the oldest Black Studies departments in the nation, highlighting debates over curriculum, attempts to downgrade the department to a program, and the mutual engagement between campus and community. The exhibit is composed of archival materials such as newspaper clippings, department documents, photos, and ephemera, chronicling events from the 1969 Omaha 54 campus sit-in to the celebration of those student activists 50 years later. The history of the Department of Black Studies had been characterized by constant struggle for survival, but also by the enduring engagement and support of the Omaha Black community. Learn about the civil rights origins of the department, battles for legitimacy in the eyes of the university, the role of the Omaha chapter of NAACP in the department’s survival, and much more.