Jack & Jill Politics

Dr. John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin was the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History, and for seven years was Professor of Legal History in the Law School at Duke University. He was a native of Oklahoma and a graduate of Fisk University. He received the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in history from Harvard University. He has taught at a number of institutions, including Fisk University, St. Augustine’s College, North Carolina Central University, and Howard University. In 1956 he went to Brooklyn College as Chairman of the Department of History; and in 1964, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, serving as Chairman of the Department of History from 1967 to 1970. At Chicago, he was the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor from 1969 to 1982, when he became Professor Emeritus.

Professor Franklin’s numerous publications include The Emancipation Proclamation, The Militant South, The Free Negro in North Carolina, Reconstruction After the Civil War, and A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Ante-bellum North. Perhaps his best known book is From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, now in its seventh edition. His Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities for 1976 was published in 1985 and received the Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize for that year. In 1990, a collection of essays covering a teaching and writing career of fifty years, was published under the title, Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988. In 1993, he published The Color Line: Legacy for the Twenty-first Century. Professor Franklin’s most recent book, My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin, is an autobiography of his father that he edited with his son, John Whittington Franklin. His current research deals with “Dissidents on the Plantation: Runaway Slaves.”

From The WashingtonPost.com:

When Barack Obama emerged as a possible candidate for president, I asked John Hope how historic it would be if Obama won his party’s nomination. He replied that the historical significance of such a thing was beyond measure. Obama’s nomination, he said, “would counter one of the most dominant narratives of the past 350 years on this continent.” Then he added the thought that it could be even more historically and culturally important “to have that family as the First Family than to have Obama as President.”

Youtube:

TPM Photo Essay on John Hope Franklin

Media:

Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin by John Hope Franklin

From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (2 Vols. in 1) by John Hope Franklin (Author), Alfred A. Moss Jr. (Author)

Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938-1988 by John Hope Franklin (Author), McBratney (Author)

Charlie Rose – John Hope Franklin (January 21, 2008)-DVD

First Person Singular: John Hope Franklin (1998)-DVD

In Search of the Promised Land: A Slave Family in the Old South by John Hope Franklin (Author), Loren Schweninger (Author)

Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation by John Hope Franklin (Author), Loren Schweninger (Author)

Reconstruction after the Civil War by John Hope Franklin

George Washington Williams: A Biography by John Franklin