In Memory of John Hope Franklin (1915-2009)
Historians in the News![]() | HNN readers are encouraged to post their memories on the discussion board below. No registration is required. |
Tributes
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NYT editorial page tribute by Brent Staples
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HNN History Doyen Profile
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David Levering Lewis on John Hope Franklin's Moral and Intellectual Poise
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NYT Week in Review
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2 surprising stories about a great historian
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John Hope Franklin remembered by one of his graduate students
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James C. Cobb: My Heroes Haven't Always Been Cowboys
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Walter Dellinger in the WaPo
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Stan Katz tribute
Obituaries
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NYT
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Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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AP
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John Hope Franklin: Wa Po Review of His Memoir
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Charlotte Observer
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Duke University
Articles by John Hope Franklin
OAH Appearance 2007
Note: Video quality is poor.
HNN Archives
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John Hope Franklin: Dean of U.S. historians tells his story
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David Horowitz: Why I Am Not Celebrating John Hope Franklin's Birthday
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John Hope Franklin & Yu Ying-shih: Two History Scholars Are to Split $1 Million Award
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Ralph Luker: John Hope Franklin Endorses Obama
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John Hope Franklin on the Diane Rehm Show
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John Hope Franklin: His Vision for the New Slavery Museum
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John Hope Franklin says it's time for all of us to stand up
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John Hope Franklin: Named first Inouye chair in Hawaii
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John Hope Franklin: Historian criticizes Cherokee Nation for excluding slave descendants
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John Hope Franklin profiled in the WaPo
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John Hope Franklin: Feted at Duke University
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John Hope Franklin: Warns of bias in history
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John Hope Franklin: He changed how Americans view their own past (NYT)
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Duke U. library exhibit celebrating his life
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Eric Arnesen: Review of John Hope Franklin's Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
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More Comments:
James C. Cobb - 3/28/2009
Like so many others, I'm deeply saddened by John Hope's death. My tardy but heartfelt remembrance can be found at http://cobbloviate.com.
Walt McElligott - 3/27/2009
My condolences to his family as another important man of letters answers the final call of history.
Walt
Lana Ruegamer - 3/27/2009
Professor Franklin visited Indiana University for a few days in the mid-1980s as a Patten Lecturer and made himself available to students. Although I was only a part-time visiting assistant professor, he kindly accepted my invitation to address the large H102 class I was teaching, two or three hundred undergraduates, many of them trying to satisfy a requirement in what they hoped would be an easy way and all but one of them white, as I recall. For them the subject of race in American history was a difficult-to-grasp and somewhat depressing story about somebody else's hard times; one student a few years earlier had thought the black codes after the Civil War had constrained black people only by outlawing interracial dating and denying them access to restaurants. Franklin transformed the subject of race in the United States in the twentieth century into a riveting personal narrative that was both down-to-earth and eloquent. He offered them the gift of his witness, his learning, his dignity, and his righteous indignation at bigotry and injustice. For many of the small-town Hoosier students present he was the first highly-educated black man they had encountered face-to-face, and I speculated from their expressions that meeting him had prompted a minor quake in their perceptual landscapes.
I drove him to and from class in my rather old, cramped, and shabby little Renault, in which the impeccable Franklin looked incongruous. I remember that I had left home without my purse and had to borrow fifteen cents from him to pay the fee to park. He was not only a great man but a very nice one.
AndrewMc - 3/26/2009
My memory of him is here:
http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2009/03/death-of-john-hope-franklin.html
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