Revisiting Out of Omaha Pt. 1: Tale of Two
by Leo Adam Biga
Being poor and black in America means being subject to societal-systemic ensnarement that entraps the vulnerable in generational despair. The documentary Out of Omaha depicts twin brothers, Darcell and Darrell Trotter, navigating these common pitfalls in their hometown of Omaha, and adopted hometown of Grand Island, in Nebraska.
Shot over eight years, the 2018 film produced by Nebraska native Ryan Johnston, directed by Clay Tweel (The Innocent Man) and executive produced by music artist J. Cole, charts the journey of the Trotters, though Darcell’s story is front and center. The award-winning doc has shown at festivals and on Starz and can now be streamed across multiple channels.
With its intimate, gritty, POV-style, the film follows Darcell as he tries escaping harsh conditions borne of poverty, addiction, gang affiliation, incarceration and profiling. Along the way, he temporarily loses his freedom, he becomes a father, he starts a business, he attempts a music career and he grieves a step-brother convicted of murder. Always, he remains loyal to his family and crew. We feel the urgency of his situation until he finally, mercifully gets out from under oppression and poverty.
PART I
A half-century ago Omaha became the symbol of racial intolerance inside and outside the Lutheran Church in America through the Academy Award-nominated documentary A Time for Burning (1966). In the film a young Ernie Chambers excoriates the white privileged establishment. Six decades later his words echo resoundingly in Out of Omaha, whose beginning and end are framed by his withering critique. The story of the barriers the Trotter brothers encounter and the extraordinary means they must take to overcome inequality and injustice represents an entire people’s plight in microcosm.
“There’s a cool synergy here because I don't think Out of Omaha exists without A Time for Burning,” producer Ryan Johnston says. “Our story really takes place in the here-and-now, and in a lot of ways, it’s a very intimate and personal story of these few people from North Omaha. But it also references much larger trends and ideas about our society and culture related to inequality, oppression, and systemic racism. So finding ways to connect our deeply personal story with those larger ideas was a big challenge.
“We’re all such fans of A Time for Burning. It’s such a wonderful film and the storytelling is so clear and engaging that there really wasn't a better way to provide that context about where North Omaha has been and how we got to today. What makes it kind of sad is how much the times and the culture have changed, but in a lot of ways things really haven’t changed.”
The Trotters gain stride on the steep odds against them. They have their own concrete business, Ground Experts LLC. Darcell has a clothing line and is pursuing acting and music opportunities. But as the film also points out, not everyone from these same inner-city circumstances makes it out.
Darcell says perseverance is essential in the face of bleak prospects.
“The main thing I hope people take from this is that no matter what situation might be going on in your life and whatever obstacles you have to surpass; keep a focused mindset through it. We all have our different goals and journeys, but sometimes we can go through something that kind of derails us, and makes us lose sight of that, and makes us want to give up. You can feel like ‘I'm tired of going through this, every time I try to do this, they make it hard for me.’”
The film makes us pull for Darcell in the face of repeated hurdles. As an observer noted, “You hope he’s going to come out of this all right.”
A cousin, Tyrone Beasley, admires what the Trotters did, “I’m proud they were trying to better their situation. It showed a lot of courage to put their life up, there, like that, and to let cameras document what happened for that many years.” He calls the documentary “a powerful and moving film.”
Beasley, who recently directed Darcell in A Raisin in the Sun at the Omaha Community Playhouse, is impressed that Trotter shared his story with others in mind.
“I think he sees the bigger picture; that it not only helped him but helps others in similar situations. It’s cathartic. People can see their story up there. They feel like they’re being heard for the first time.”
Ryan Johnston was there for the whole topsy-turvy ride – from Trotter twice being falsely accused of crimes to starting over in Grand Island on his own terms.
“Everything through which Darcell went, that we see on camera, I was right there alongside him, as a witness to all of that”, Johnston says. “At the same time my affection for him and my bond with him grew. It was just such a powerful experience.”
Trotter counts Johnston and others in the film, including the producer’s father, Jef Johnston, as mentors. During filming the senior Johnston, a retired educator, ran the Avenue Scholars Foundation that supports at-risk young people through high school and college. Trotter was part of the first Scholars class. The program identifies struggling students who show promise, and tries putting the right supports in place to navigate them through school into a career.
Scholars was created to build strong mentoring relationships.
“It was a very intensive mentoring relationship where they were always on call, always in that young person’s life,” Jef Johnston says.
“We wanted someone who had experienced what our kids were experiencing and had grown into an adult that could understand and help them. The idea was the more you can surround him with people willing to help and that he can trust the better off he is.”
When Trotter needed a stable, safe home, he lived with Johnston and his wife, Susie.
“He’s been like a father to me,” Trotter says of his friend.
“I know he trusts me and my wife,” says Johnston, who’s seen Trotter grow. “One of the biggest things I’ve seen is some emotional maturity with him. When he was a young man he might go off on his math teacher or counselor and be kicked out of school. He’s learned to deal with anxiety. Besides his maturity, the thing I’ve noticed is his level of persistence. He just keeps trying. He’s trying with work, he’s trying to be a good father.”
As the film chronicles, Trotter served a stint in the Douglas County Correctional Center after turning himself in on a warrant for a crime he was a suspect in.
“That was difficult,” Johnston says. “I’m sure there’s some bitterness and anger there. There should be. But he’s just a very sweet person. Despite all the difficulties he’s encountered he remains that. I don’t know how he does that, but he does. He has a will to keep moving on. He’s a good person and he wants to do the right thing.”
Ryan Johnston learned about Trotter through his father.
“I started to hear some stories coming out of the lives of the kids they were serving in Avenue Scholars. They were eye-opening for my dad and for me as well. There are many stories being told right now about inequality because I think it’s in our national consciousness in a way it hasn't been for some time. What’s particularly shocking about our story is its setting of Omaha, Nebraska. People sort of take for granted America has these urban problems in Washington D.C. or Baltimore or Detroit, but to hear that those things also happen in Omaha, and that in some cases its violence and poverty are actually much worse than they are in other cities, is really shocking to people.”
Disparities get starkly laid bare in Out of Omaha. “The film depicts two Omahas,” Johnston says. “There’s the Omaha where the haves are and the Omaha where the have-nots are.” Documenting the challenges of the black experience through the prism of a young man’s life affected Johnston. “It was profound in every way. I’ve always thought of myself as an open-minded, progressive person. I thought I had a basic understanding of what systemic racism and inequality meant. But in working on the film I found my notions of those things exist very much in the abstract. That’s where a lot of conversations about these issues take place. What our film tries to do is to zoom in, on a personal level, to show … what it looks like when all of that machinery goes to work on one real person’s life.
Urban League of Nebraska Vice President of Programs, Wayne Brown, was formerly with Avenue Scholars. In the film Brown shares how his own story was similar to Trotter’s, in terms of growing up in a family caught up in gangs and drugs. His own tribe, not to mention society, and the criminal justice system, expected he would become another black casualty. The same pressures were at work in Trotter’s life.
“The film shows how policy isolates one individual,” says Brown. “All these systems affect one kid’s life. By the end of that film [one] understands that when all these barriers are compounded it’s kind of an inescapable system in which pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is not even an option.”
Only by chance did Brown escape death or imprisonment. Like Trotter, Brown had mentors steer him in the right direction. Despite the bumps and detours on Trotter’s journey, the film ends on an affirming note of self-actualization and self-determination.
“It’s empowering,” Brown says. “I feel a sense of hope after watching it. It’s almost like therapy.”
In making the film Ryan Johnston gained a whole new perspective.
“The experience took my vague awareness of what racism and oppression meant in this country, to watching it happen to a real human being, and seeing first-hand how unjust it is. I’m a little bit angry about how the media present black men. We have that point in our film where KETV ‘Crime Stoppers’ shows Darcell's face on the evening news, for a crime he didn't commit. This was a kid in college really trying hard to get it right. He ends up with his face on the news, which led to him not being able to go anywhere. Then it happened again in Grand Island, (a woman alleged sexual assault, only to recant her story. Yet few media revised their initial misreports). Those are really concrete examples of what systemic racism looks like,” says Johnston.
Trotter was heartbroken when the mother of his daughter obtained a restraining order against him; and denied him access to his then-new born child. The couple has since reconciled and now share custody.
He is well past the revolving crisis mode in which he once found himself; but the realities of being black in America persist.
“My brother [and I] getting denied by banks when we have money in the bank. Loan officers are still like, [sic] no, we can’t do anything for you, sorry buddy,” Trotter says. “[He and I] could have easily said, ‘[Man], let’s forget this and blow,’ but we just kind of stuck it out.”
While not everyone finds a pathway to success, Trotter is glad his story of coming through to the other side is available to inspire others.
“I definitely want people to know no matter whatever the situation, just try to keep a positive mindset through it all. Never lose your faith and focus. I really hope my story can let people know that just because you might be having a hard time now or you made a few mistakes it doesn’t mean your life is over with. The only one that can decide that is God. I want people to know [that they] are in control of [their] destiny.”
DEAR LITTLE BROTHER (feat. @sckyrei & @INFNTLP) #newsingle #outofomaha
It’s why he agreed to have the filmmakers follow him in the first place.
“I was wanting people to see what I was going through. I’ve been getting calls from around the world; from people from different walks of life. They’re letting me know how the film touched them and how they’re able to relate to it. For my story to resonate with thousands of people around the world is amazing. It gives you that perspective that just when you think it might be only you going through something, there are people going through the same thing.
“A kid from Canada messaged me saying, ‘I was going to commit suicide until I watched Out of Omaha. Your film saved my life – thank you.’ It made me get real emotional because I’ve been there – where you feel like the only way out is to end your life. That kid was really in pain. I’m glad he was able to watch the film and it touched him and let him know we all have something we can contribute to society.”
The film’s not only opened up Trotter’s world but that of Skylar Reed, alias Scky Rei, a rapper seen in the documentary, helping his lifelong friend in a time of need and having the favor returned. “It kind of solidified some shit for me, musically; because I get to say I worked with J. Cole and I’ve got my music next to his,” says Reed. “I think that’s a beautiful thing.”
Meanwhile, the project introduced Trotter to first-rate filmmakers. It gave him the opportunity to speak to large audiences at its premiere in New York City and at film festivals around the country, including a featured slot at the Omaha Film Festival. He’s done interviews with national media, including The Young Turks.
“It’s definitely been a journey for me,” Trotter says. “I’m happy to be in this position and to have a platform to be a voice for people who don’t have a voice. I’m definitely blessed. Honestly, I feel for anything to change and to move forward you have to put it out there on the line.”
Those who’ve been on the frontlines of intervening in young people’s lives say the movie was made at a time when Omaha was just beginning to respond to its then epidemic of poverty and violence.
“Man, I had forgotten how bad it was,” says Wayne Brown. “When you’re in poverty, so many things are out of your control. We can’t have young people walking around isolated. We have to surround them with community and hope. It may take a while, but those seeds will grow. Back then, there weren’t as many supports around. We’re a more collaborative community than we were 10 or 12 years ago. It’s a whole different world. Don’t get me wrong, we still have a long way to go. But we’re nothing like we were back then.”
Brown and groups like the Empowerment Network point to decreased violent crime and unemployment and increased high school graduation rates as measures of progress.
Even with Building Bright Futures birth-through-college initiatives and efforts like the Step Up youth jobs program, Jef Johnston says, “There needs to be more effort in Omaha to correct situations of disparity. There needs to be a bigger presence by nonprofits and businesses to do the right thing for people. Despite all the effort and well-intentioned things. It’s not even close [emphasis added] to where it needs to be.”
Ryan Johnston says while there’s been an improvement, no one disputes “there are still a lot of people left behind.”
Some lessons have been learned.
“We’ve learned in the nonprofit space the importance of family engagement,” Brown says. “There are so many programs now available to help stabilize a family. A whole community got together to do this. There are now many different organizations doing wrap-around services [saving] young people.”
Even though Darcell Trotter left Avenue Scholars before completing the program, Brown says “what we’re able to show in the film is that over time with sustained social capital, interaction and community engagement control can return, to provide agency to kids like him.”
Skylar Reed’s proud of how far his homie and fellow rapper have come. “He’s taking care of his family, he has his daughter back in his life – at the right time. He’s got his business cracking off. He and his brother are doing their thing.” It’s all up there on the screen for people to appreciate. “Most importantly I got to see my brother survive and thrive,” Reed says. “That’s always a positive. We’re family. We tight, bro.” As for the film, Reed says, “It’s dope, it’s bittersweet, it’s made people aware of what’s going on.”
Visit the film’s website at fireflyinc.com. Stream the movie on Amazon, Hulu, STARZ, Apple TV, etc.