Ophelia Clenlans

Ophelia Clenlans ( – February 12, 1907) was a civil rights activist and journalist from Omaha, Nebraska.

Biography Clenlans was born a slave in about 1841 in Platte County, Missouri, and came to Omaha. Clenlans married Emanuel S. Clenlans and they had one daughter, Laura (married name of Craig).

Clenlans was appointed a member of the executive board of the National Federation of Afro-American Women in 1896. She was also a prominent member of the Omaha Colored Women's Club led by Ella Mahammitt. She was a prime mover or the organization of the North and South Omaha Colored Woman's club. She was treasurer of the Nebraska chapter of the Ruth Corps, an Omaha religious group, and an officer of the Prince Hall Order of the Eastern Star.

She also wrote in the World-Herald about interracial marriage: "As to love between the two colors, that is a matter open to discussion, yet to my mind, love is a God-given instinct, over which no man or woman has control.[...] Intermarriage with the whites is last in their thoughts, but intellectual equality they have a right to expect, and who has a right to deny them this boon?" and pneumonia. Her funeral was at the St. John's AME Church and she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.