Historian Held Mirror to the American Paradox Called Race

By Sr. Correspondent,  D. Kevin McNeir

One of my most memorable interviews was with an African-American chronicler of history - Dr. John Hope Franklin. In fact, having a conversation with one of America's preeminent historians was tantamount to sitting at the feet of a learned griot - the great storytellers of history from the Motherland.



 

 
For not only did he dedicate the majority of his life to research, reflection and the retelling of our story, but as one of the most influential historians of black America, Franklin was and will always be one of our greatest intellectual treasures - an avatar of the travails of 20th century life itself.

Franklin, 94, died on Wednesday, March 25 of congestive heart failure at Duke University Hospital in Durham, N.C. He is best known for his groundbreaking 1947 text, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans. But during his career which began at Fisk University and would end at Duke University, he would publish hundreds of academic articles and 16 books that focused on Southern history and African American life.

Born January 2, 1915 in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, Franklin graduated from Fisk University in 1915, earned a master's degree by the age of 21 and was awarded a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University. And while he was clearly a proud husband, father and African-American man, to refer to him simply as a Black historian would be to minimize the impact and significance of his work.

"My challenge was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of Blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly," he said.

And so before and certainly since the publication of his seminal text, continuously updated since its 1947 release and with over three million copies printed to date, Franklin has been about sharing the real deal about America and its greatest challenge: the paradox of race.
The Making of a Classic

Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom has become a primer for those interested in the story of Black America, but many are unaware of the story behind how Franklin and his colleague and co-author, Alfred A. Moss, Jr., rose to the monumental task that the editors of Knopf Publishing Company presented to two then-young scholars over 50 years ago.

"I was in Durham and was working on one project when Roger Shugg from Knopf contacted me about writing a history of the African American," Franklin said. "I told him about my current work [The Militant South 1800-1860, published 1956] and thought that he would jump at it, but he didn't. He did acknowledge its importance, but said what was really necessary was a text that dealt with 'Negroes in American life.'

"You have to remember that the war was ending, and there were still a lot of stereotypes and false notions about Negroes - who we were and from whence we had come. Our people have been making positive contributions to America since we were first brought here from Africa, but no book had ever fairly dealt with our story."

As the story goes, Franklin initially turned Shugg down but says the editor continued to "nag" him, even going so far as to hop a flight from New York City and landing on Franklin's doorstep. And so after some arm twisting and negotiating on both sides and with an advance in royalties of $500, a significant sum of money in 1945, he agreed. Then as he says, the pressure set in.

 
"I sent them the first five chapters and they liked what they saw, telling me that this would become a landmark book," he said. "But I was given a deadline of April 1, 1947, and had almost no resources at my disposal. We didn't have computers then, no Internet. In fact, I didn't even have an office. The only space I had on campus [North Carolina Central University, Durham] was my classroom, when other teachers did not have the room assigned for their classes. The apartment that my wife and I shared was very small - too small to even try to finish the book. So she used her income from her position as a librarian at the Law School to send me to Washington, D.C., where I could access information and write without distraction."

Despite traveling regularly from Washington, D.C. to a VA hospital in Richmond where his brother was sick and near death, Franklin remained focused and completed the bulk of the text by Christmas 1946. To the surprise of the publishers, he placed a full manuscript on their desk by March 1947 - one month shy of his April 1st deadline.

"They really did not expect to see the complete manuscript for at least another year," he said. "That was something I couldn't understand. After all, a deadline is a deadline, isn't it?"

Hard Work Paved the Way to Success

It is difficult to imagine the kinds of obstacles that this humble man had to face, and the hurdles he scaled in order to make his life's dreams come true, but Franklin explained that he really wasn't any smarter or better than anyone else. In fact, he says that throughout his life he refused to participate in the blame game, as it related to race, as an excuse for not being able to achieve his personal goals.

"People always ask me what it was like to be a Black doctoral student at Harvard, and are surprised when I tell them that I don't recall suffering any serious discrimination - at least not any more than other Blacks were faced with in the 1940s," he said. "And if I had let it get to me too seriously, I would have been dead a long time ago. I would never have made it into my 90s.

"I was awarded a fellowship at Harvard and remember that I was not given the opportunity to teach classes and grade papers as a professor's assistant like my White colleagues. They didn't want me grading any White boys' papers. I suppose I could have complained or tried to make demands, but instead I took advantage of the discrimination and let it work for me. While the White guys were running behind professors and meeting with other students, I was in the library working on my own stuff. During my second year, I wrote a paper that was published by the New England Quarterly, a very respectable journal. No other student before me could claim such an honor. So, it's all in the way you handle things."
Franklin went on to say that it isn't set-aside programs that African Americans need as much as the willingness to work as hard as possible, and be steadfast in making their demands known.
"When I consider my days in college, times when restaurants, schools, hotels and public transportation were all segregated, I have to say things are better today," he said. "But still our race is so very far behind others. We may be better off but we're still bad off. I think each individual needs to set higher standards, be impatient and press for those great concessions that have been promised to all Americans.

"Hurricane Katrina illustrated how this country just sits back and let's Blacks suffer. Many seem to have forgotten that Black suffering didn't just begin in Louisiana - it's been going on for years. Now the situation here is going to take more than just individual effort. Blacks didn't create those problems down there by themselves. It's going to take a national effort to right these wrongs. Our country has to face that fact."

Franklin's reach stretched far beyond the world of academia. He was even called upon by Thurgood Marshall as he was preparing for what would be the attorney's most significant victory - Brown vs. Board of Education.

"It was really special to work with Thurgood, and the irony was that while we were working on trying to desegregate the public schools, I couldn't even stay in a hotel in downtown D.C.," he said. "I would take the train from New York City to D.C. every Wednesday afternoon and go to his office, which was around the corner from the hotel that he and his staff put me in - the Algonquin. We didn't consider ourselves giants or anything like that - we were just doing what had to be done. My job was to do research and to teach his legal staff about the sentiment of Congress when they were considering the desegregation of schools back in 1867 and 1868, when the 14th Amendment was under consideration."

 

 
Franklin noted that when the case was decided the following year [May 17, 1954] he wasn't even in the courtroom. In fact, it was his wife who called him with the news.

"That was a day to remember and a victory worth celebrating," he said. "We were proud that Linda Brown and every other Negro child could finally go to any public school they desired and receive the kind of quality education that our children had for so long been denied."

In Opposition to Black History Month

Franklin had the ability to tell a good story, but then that should not be surprising given the fact that he was a talented historian. But imagine the kinds of tales he often wove when he reflected upon the experiences that he had enjoyed during his lifetime - sitting among some of the greatest minds in American history: Thurgood Marshall, W.E.B. DuBois, Benjamin E. Mays and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., just to name a few - individuals who made history.

Thus it might seem strange that while he remained in high and constant demand for speaking engagements until his death, Franklin refused to accept any invitations that focused on the observance of Black History Month.

"I don't observe Black History Month because in truth there is so much to study and to learn - so many so-called facts that are in truth distortions of what really transpired - that we need 12 months just to tell the real story," he said. "I speak in March, April, May - any month, but not during February. To see people promoting and observing the contributions of African Americans for one month is strange to me. It's like they think they are really doing something, but to me it's silly.

"Look at it this way. When I talk to young people, I tell them that it is very difficult to find the true history of the United States in any books. First, most history books are written by committee with specifications from school boards, so a lot is left out. Forget about Brown vs. Board of Education - what do we know about Blacks who fought in the American Revolution after Washington realized that his back was against the wall and he needed fresh, willing troops? Or consider that Blacks once again volunteered during the Civil War and World War I and when they were finally accepted, they were forced to fight in segregated units. Do our young people know that Blacks were forced to fight with the French against the Germans because White Americans didn't want them near them - even though they were fighting for the liberty of our country? Not one Black soldier was given the Medal of Honor for heroics in battles to keep this land of ours safe - to keep us free. I tell students the government ignored our contributions, ignored the many Black soldiers who gave their lives, and didn't even say thank you to any one of us. That's the kind of history that many authors omit, and which needs to be told and written down for future generations."