Renowned Historian John Hope Franklin to Appear at Oklahoma History Center
Contact: Michael Dean
(405) 522-5241
Oklahoma City, OK
March 9, 2007
For Immediate Release
John Hope Franklin, native Oklahoman and one of America's foremost historians will make a rare appearance in the state at the Oklahoma History Center on April 7, 2007 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm. The public is invited and there is no admission charge to see Dr. Franklin. The Oklahoma History Center is located at 2401 North Laird Avenue just East of the State Capitol on N.E. 23rd Street.
Franklin was born in Renteisville, OK on January 2, 1915. Shortly after the Tulsa Race Riot in 1921, his family moved to Tulsa. In 1931, he graduated from Tulsa's Booker T. Washington High School. In 1935, he received his A.B. degree from Fisk University, then earned both a masters and doctorate from Harvard University.
His father, B.C. Franklin was an attorney who handled lawsuits precipitated by the tragic Tulsa race riot in 1921. Many years later, Dr. Franklin served as Chairman of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission.
Franklin's mother, Mollie, was a teacher. He followed his mother's career in education, accepting a teaching position at Fisk after completing his doctorate at Harvard. He later became the first black historian to assume a full professorship at a white institution, Brooklyn College, and to be appointed chair of the University of Chicago's history department, and later, John B. Duke Professor at Duke University.
In 1945, he received a $500 advance from Alfred A. Knopf, and with help from his wife, Aurelia, Franklin began writing the classic African American history text, From Slavery to Freedom. The book, co-authored by Alfred A. Moss, Jr. is now in its seventh edition and is published in several different languages. Franklin has written hundreds of articles and 15 books. His recent works include Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantations with Loren Schweninger, George Washington Williams: A Biography and a book about his father My Life and an Era: the Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin as well as his own autobiography, The Vintage Years.
In the early 1950s, Franklin served on the NAACP Legal Defense team led by Thurgood Marshall that helped develop the case that led to the 1954 United States Supreme Court decision ending the legal segregation of black and white children in public schools.
Franklin has served on many national commissions and delegations, including the National Council on the Humanities, from which he resigned in 1979, when the President appointed him to the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. He has also served on the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments. In September and October of 1980, he was a United States delegate to the 21st General Conference of UNESCO. Among many other foreign assignments, Dr. Franklin has served as Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions at Cambridge University, Consultant on American Education in the Soviet Union, Fulbright Professor in Australia, and Lecturer in American History in the People's Republic of China. Professor Franklin served as chairman of the advisory board for One America: The President's Initiative on Race.
Franklin has been the recipient of many honors. In 1978, Who's Who in America selected Dr. Franklin as one of eight Americans who has made significant contributions to society. In the same year, he was elected to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. He also received the Jefferson Medal for 1984, awarded by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. In 1989, he was the first recipient of the Cleanth Brooks Medal of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and in 1990 received the Encyclopedia Britannica Gold Medal for the Dissemination of Knowledge. In 1993, Dr. Franklin received the Charles Frankel Prize for contributions to the humanities, and in 1994, the Cosmos Club Award and the Trumpet Award from Turner Broadcasting Corporation. In 1995, he received the first W.E.B. DuBois Award from the Fisk University Alumni Association, the Organization of American Historians' Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Alpha Phi Alpha Award of Merit, the NAACP's Spingarn Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1996, Professor Franklin was elected to the Oklahoma Historians Hall of Frame and in 1997 he received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. In addition to his many awards, Dr. Franklin has received honorary degrees from more than one hundred colleges and universities.
On November 15, 2006, it was announced that Franklin was the third recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity.
Last month, Dr. Franklin received the 2007 Hubert H. Humphrey Civil rights Award from the Leadership Conference on Civil rights, the oldest and largest civil and human rights coalition in the nation.