Ferdinand L. Barnett (Omaha)

He was founder and editor of the newspaper The Progressive, which ran from 1889 to 1906 and served for a time as deputy clerk in the county court.

Alfred S. later moved to Des Moines and then Chicago, while Ferdinand stayed in Omaha until his death from heart disease on July 18, 1932.

Services were at St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church and Barnett is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery.

His influence through the paper was both local and national, and in 1901, he was elected vice president of the Western Negro Press Association.

In 1892 or 1893, Democrat Cyrus D. Bell established the Afro-American Sentinel[11] and in 1893, fellow Republican G. F. Franklin began publishing the Enterprise (later owned and edited by John Albert Williams).

[12] In May 1921, Barnett was appointed custodian of the old and new police station by Commissioner Henry Dunn, succeeding George Hockley.

[4] Along with John Andrew Singleton, he was one of two black men elected to the Nebraska House of Representatives in 1926.

[21] His names is sometimes misspelled as T. L. Barnett, likely due to a transcriptiom error in the Negro Year Book.