George F. Franklin

Ella Mahammitt wrote that he "is doing more for the colored people of Omaha than any other man engaged in public affairs".

[17] In the early 1890s, Franklin joined the Nebraska branch of T. Thomas Fortune's National Afro-American League.

The league began in Omaha in early 1890, and on April 30, 1890, after Matthew Ricketts and a number of other leaders attended the first national meeting of the league, black Omaha leaders including Franklin called for a meeting of black Nebraskans to discuss issues relating to equal rights, to form a permanent state league, and to support black people seeking to move to Nebraska to purchase homes and farms.

[18] In 1895, Franklin, Millard F. Singleton, Ricketts, and James Bryant were the Omaha delegates to the state meeting of the National Afro-American League.

[19] In the mid-1890s, two cases against black men in Omaha received great attention: the murder of Maude Rubel and the Rock Island train crash near Lincoln.

J. C. C. Owens, M. O. Ricketts, T. P. Mahammitt, Franklin, George E. Collins, John Wright, J. W. Long all played key roles in organizing the efforts.

For organizing black representation at the Omaha exhibition, Edwin R. Overall, John Albert Williams and Cyrus D. Bell played especially important roles.

[24] The relationship between erstwhile political allies Franklin, F. L. Barnett, M. F. Singleton, and M. O. Ricketts fractured in the buildup to the expositions over the lack of inclusion of blacks in the city's organizational ranks.

[25] In The Sentinel, Cyrus D. Bell, Omaha's preeminent black Democrat, felt that Ricketts' greed for power was at the root of the problem and was critical of Franklin as well.