Born and raised in Greensboro, Carla Franklin first left the city for college at Duke University. Post graduation, she ended up working as a programmer and then in the world of consulting. After getting married and living in New York for 12 years, Franklin and her husband moved back to Greensboro.
“I just remember it being such a hidden gem in North Carolina,” she said.
After she had kids, she found a new passion: education. She became disillusioned with public schools—including the Guilford County Schools from which she graduated—and started her own business promoting school choice for Black and brown children in Greensboro.
While this is her first time running for public office, Franklin said her years of experience in business would translate well to a seat on the Greensboro City Council. Franklin, a former Democrat, is now registered as unaffiliated and is running for one of three at-large seats on the nine-member city council.
She was prompted to run for council, she said, after seeing a “lack of transformative leadership at the city level.”
“I think there has been a history of having city leaders who come through certain established networks,” she said. “I don’t think that works for Greensboro in the current era. I think we need new blood at this time.”
City council elections in Greensboro are technically non-partisan. But this election, in which at least half the council seats will turn over at once, has already seen more partisanship and direct involvement from local parties than in most years.
When asked about her party switch, Franklin said she no longer identifies with the Democratic party.
“I want to build bridges with people of all walks of life,” she said. “That meant I wanted to go independent. I talk to everybody: conservatives, Democrats, independents. I feel like a bridge builder. And I’m encouraging other Black people to talk to everyone.”
“I have encountered a lot of pushback, particularly from white liberals who think I should think a certain way,” Franklin said. “I think that is soft bigotry. Black people in politics have been expected to toe a certain line and I am sick of it.”
While city council does not have a direct hand in the public school system, it is an area that Franklin is passionate about. For the past several years, she has been the CEO of Moms of Color for School Choice.
“It was born out of my own frustration with the school system that I graduated from,” she said. “There’s this underlying understanding that school should lead to workforce readiness and some life readiness, and I became concerned after enrolling my children. The curriculum was really weak, and I felt that as a parent, I didn’t have a voice.”
She also pointed out that many private schools produce higher reading scores than students who come out of public schools.
National data shows private Catholic schools produced higher scores than both public and public charter schools for fourth and eighth-grade reading levels in 2024.
Having school choice helps Black and brown children who continue to score lower in reading compared to white students, Franklin said. Guilford County’s reading score disparity is slightly greater than the national disparity.
Opponents of school choice cite issues like increased socioeconomic segregation and racial segregation as a result of pulling funding out of public schools.
Analysts have also found that voucher programs redirect money out of public schools, which leaves remaining children in the system having to “bear the cost for educational choices that others make,” according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute.
Franklin said that the issue isn’t school choice but that administrators of the schools take more money than they need.
“The resources need to follow the children,” she said. “Not the adults.”
The Greensboro Police Officers Association has endorsed Franklin, and she has made public safety another keystone of her campaign.
Up until a few years ago, she said, the Greensboro Police Department was at the lower end of the spectrum in the state with regard to officer pay. In the last two budget cycles, the police department’s budget has increased. After years of funding and starting salary increases, Greensboro police are now among the highest paid in the state.
During the 2020 racial justice protests, Franklin said she heard from those in law enforcement that police were being discouraged from stopping speeding drivers or ticketing people with expired tags.
Franklin said that she doesn’t think it was an official policy, but rather an internal cultural change within the department resulting from the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement.
The department has reckoned with its handling of traffic stops for some time. In 2015, a New York Times investigation found Black drivers in Greensboro were proportionally far more likely to be pulled over than white drivers. Statistics showed they were also much more likely to be searched and to have force used against them, even if they were resisting the officer.
Wayne Scott, then the city’s chief of police, responded by suspending traffic stops for minor “vehicle equipment infractions,” which made up the majority of traffic stops. The department continues to face criticism for some traffic stops, including one in May that led the Greensboro City Council to request officers’ body camera footage.
Franklin also said that there has been “an increase in murders, homicides and crimes” in the city. However, the most recent GPD crime data shows the number of homicides has remained largely unchanged compared to last year, and the number of overall crimes has been trending down since 2023.
When it comes to issues like homelessness, Franklin said she wants to get at the root causes like drug addiction and mental illness. She advocates for affordable housing, high-wage jobs, and high-speed broadband expansion.
Her life and career experience have prepared her for council, Franklin said.
“I have the chops for this job,” she said. “I have the chops for strategy, executive-level project management because of my experience. I see what is required from an organizational standpoint.”
Carla Franklin is Tired of Toeing the Line
