John Hope Franklin 1915-2009

When I was a student at The George Washington University from 1966-1970, I took a "History of Negroes in America" class from visiting professor John Hope Franklin. In addition to being the first person of color to chair an academic department at a major university, Brooklyn College, Professor Franklin worked with Thurgood Marshall to develop the case that eventually became Brown v. Board of Education. He was named professor emeritus of history at Duke University.

Today Professor Franklin died and a memory of how life in America changed in the last ninety years disappeared. We have lost a great man who honored the history of his people, filling in so that our collective memories would not fail us. With his scholarship, the civil rights movement took root and made history.

This is what I remember about this dignified and courtly man whom I didn't quite understand.

I attended every class, which was a miracle in those years. I wrote a paper called "Abraham Lincoln: The Emancimuthafuckinpater of the Slaves." I fashioned the title after the song in the then hit show "Hair." (Ironically, Hair has reappeared on Broadway for the first revival in over forty years.) The paper questioned whether Lincoln's motive in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was to free enslaved men and women or to keep European countries out of the American Civil War.

When Professor Franklin walked passed my seat to give me back my graded paper, he sighed. He handed it back with an A- marked on it. "It's the title," he said sadly. I realized then that he didn't understand the cultural reference I was making.

I will never forget his sadness. I lost a lot of arrogance that day.

We are fortunate that Professor Franklin was so prolific.

This is just a partial list:

• The Free Negro in North Carolina, 1790-1860, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943, 1995.
• The Diary of James T. Ayers, Civil War recruiter ed., with introd., by John Franklin. Springfield; State of Illinois, 1947.
• From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 1st ed. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1947. Last update with Alfred Moss, 8th ed. McGraw-Hill Education, 2000, ISBN 0-07-112058-0
• The Militant South, 1800-1861. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1956; 1st Illinois pbk. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002.
• Reconstruction: after the Civil War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
• The Emancipation Proclamation. 1st ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963; 2nd ed. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 1993.
• Land of the Free; a history of the United States, by John W. Caughey, John Hope Franklin and Ernest R. May. Educational advisers: Richard M. Clowes and Alfred T. Clark, Jr. Rev. New York: Benziger Bros., 1966.
• The Negro in Twentieth Century America: A Reader on the Struggle for Civil Rights, by John Hope Franklin & Isidore Starr. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.
• Color and Race. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
• The Historian and Public Policy, by John Hope Franklin. Chicago: University of Chicago, Center for Policy Study, c1974.
• Racial Equality in America, by John Hope Franklin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, c1976.
• A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North. by John Hope Franklin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1976.
• Black Leaders of the Twentieth Century, edited by John Hope Franklin and August Meier. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, c1982.
• George Washington Williams: a Biography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985; Reprint, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998.
• Race and History: Selected Essays 1938-1988, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1989.
• The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin, edited by Eric Anderson & Alfred A. Moss, Jr. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1991.
• The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-first Century, John Hope Franklin. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, c1993.
• Racial Equality in America, by John Hope Franklin. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1993.
• My Life and an Era: the Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin, edited by John Hope Franklin and John Whittington Franklin. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1997, 2000.
• Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation, John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Mirror to America. The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005, ISBN 0-374-29944-7