Dr. John Hope Franklin,A Prominent Black Historian,Had Died!

John Hope Franklin was a black historian who really helped put some of the pieces of an illusive African-American past together.Not only that,Mr. Franklin provoked deep thought when it came to matters of race.He understood how important it is to keep the conversation going so that racism would never be ignored & tolerated again.

At the age of 94,John Hope Franklin has died.His accomplishments & body of work will continue to be an inspiration for countless people.Here's an excerpt from an interesting interview with John Hope Franklin from Indyweek:

"So he has: a doctorate from Harvard, professorships at St. Augustine's College and N.C. Central among others, chairman of the history departments at Brooklyn College and the University of Chicago, professor of legal history at Duke and now the James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke. He's the author of numerous books, including the seminal From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, now in its seventh edition, and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the 2006 John W. Kluge award for his lifetime achievements in the humanities. (Franklin split the $1 million prize with historian Yu Ying-Shih.) He has accomplished much. But still, he is not satisfied with the America he sees for future generations.

And he talks about this dissatisfaction as often as he has an opportunity, no matter the many who find the continued conversation on matters of race or slavery or reparations or apologies tiring. "Americans are getting tired of anything that's constructive or serious, so I'm not disturbed that they find this [discussion] a bore or problem," he says.

On the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, in January, Virginia legislator Frank Hargrove was clearly among the bored, judging by his response to a resolution that the state of Virginia apologize for slavery. Hargrove suggested that it was counterproductive to dwell on slavery, and that Virginia's black citizens should just "get over it." The Virginia Assembly promptly followed the ensuing controversy by becoming the first American state to pass a measure—fully supported by Hargrove—expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

Now North Carolina has gotten into the act. The state House and Senate just passed a resolution that expresses "the profound regret of the North Carolina General Assembly for the history of wrongs inflicted upon black citizens by means of slavery, exploitation, and legalized legal segregation and calling on all citizens to take part in acts of racial reconciliation."

But one has to wonder how far apologies will go in righting past wrongs. Is it the scab that, left unbothered, will heal wounds, or is it merely a quick-fix Band-Aid, slapped on to make the ugliness of injury just go away?

Franklin, who knows what it is to grow up in a world where one's rights and equalities are constantly being questioned, refuses to let go. He thinks it's not just time for somebody to apologize, but to do something about it.

"No one knows the price that I've paid for what I've gotten out of this world and this life," he says. "My efforts represented sacrifices untold, indescribable. They don't know what my mother went through to see that I had opportunities, and even the fundamentals such as food and clothing and so forth. They don't know what my grandfather, on my father's side, paid in terms of taxes so that white young men could go to the University of Oklahoma, where my own father could not go.

"And I don't see any reason why I should get over that kind of exploitation of my immediate family—my father, my grandfather, my mother, and so forth. I see no reason I should get over it. I see every reason why there should be compensation, apologies, particularly in the hypocrisy it's represented, in their saying on the one hand that all men are created equal, and on the other hand, them saying if they're created equal, some are more equal than others." (END OF EXCERPT)Read the rest here.