of Nebraska continues today. During this period, the National Federation of Colored Women had five chapters in North Omaha with more than 750 members. They actively conducted a variety of social, political and charitable work throughout the city of Omaha.<ref>Nebraska Writers Project (n.d. est 1938) Negroes in Nebraska Works Progress Administration.</ref> Starting in 1920, the Colored Commercial Club organized to help blacks in Omaha secure employment and to encourage business enterprises among African Americans. The South Omaha Stockyards employed a large portion of the city's African American workers from the South. Working conditions there were often brutal. These workers made significant gains after organizing with the Industrial Workers of the World in the 1920s. During the Depression of the 1930s, however, they suffered setbacks when major packinghouses closed. In the 1930s, a clandestine group called the Knights and Daughters of Tabor was founded in Omaha. Also known as the "Knights of Liberty", it was a secret African-American organization whose goal was "nothing less than the destruction of slavery." In 1938, Mildred Brown founded The Omaha Star. Starting with a circulation of 6,000, it quickly became the city's only African-American newspaper, featuring positive news, role models and activities throughout the community. The paper strongly supported the local civil rights movement, for which it often featured successes and highlighted the challenges facing blacks in Omaha. The Star reported proudly on the career of Captain Alfonza W. Davis, who fought with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He was presumed Killed In Action when his aircraft disappeared over Germany in 1944. Political representation Matthew Oliver Ricketts, elected from Omaha in 1892, was Nebraska's first African American state legislator, but no other black state legislator was elected until 1926. In August 1906, black members of the Omaha community formed a group called the "Progressive League of Douglas County", Williams president, to pressure the county Republicans to include blacks on the legislative ticket, in particular Millard F. Singleton. Eventually, North Omaha sent a succession of African Americans to the State Legislature between the 1920s and WWII, starting with John Andrew Singleton and Ferdinand L. Barnett in 1926, Dr. Aaron Manasses McMillan (elected in 1928) and followed by Johnny Owen. In the first Unicameral in 1937 John Adams, Jr was elected (he served from 1935-1941) and was followed by his father, John Adams, Sr, (served from 1949 until his death in 1962). Adams, Sr was