John HOPE Franklin

John Hope Franklin: The Passing of a Giant

The senior historian and sage John Hope Franklin passed away today. I’m between classes now but I had to make a few brief observations about the size of the void he leaves behind. Dr. Franklin was part of that generation who understood scholarship as a form of activism, a small, desperately outnumbered band who set out to assault the edifice of false knowledge that upheld inequality. His life literally connects the dark onset of Jim Crow to the election of Barack Obama. There are literally dozens of things that could be said about his contributions but consider this one: it was his historical research that Thurgood Marshall relied upon in writing his arguments for the Brown v. Board of Education case.

When asked how he felt about the election of an African American president last year, Dr. Franklin remarked that his mother raised him to believe that he would, in fact, be the first African American president. And perhaps by some measure he was.

He did not take an oath of office or reside in the White House, but his body of work was an extended State of the Union address and he upheld the Constitution. He was certainly a singular leader and a man whose work laid the groundwork for all of us — historians and civilians alike — to stand on equal footing in this world.