John Hope Franklin (2 January 1915 – 25 March 2009) was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. The John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at The University of Chicago, Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More ...
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John Hope Franklin (2 January 1915 – 25 March 2009) was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. The John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at The University of Chicago, Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma and named after John Hope. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from Fisk University in 1935 and gained a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University.
Franklin met and courted Aurelia Whittington at Fisk. They married on June 11, 1940 at her parents' home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Their only child, John...
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