Essay Writing Sample: John Franklin Hope
Word Count: 1485
Born on 2nd January 1915, John Hope Franklin is well known as one of America's leading and most prominent historians (BlackPast.org). Moreover, Franklin was also the only Black American who obtained the position of President of the AHA (American Historical Association". Referring to Franklin's academic career, he graduated with distinction in 1935 from Fisk University. He earned his M.A. from Harvard in 1936 and worked as a teacher at Fisk University. He returned to Harvard for his Ph.D. in history, which he completed in 1941. Franklin did extensive research on African-American history. He wrote extensive books that established the Black perspective with the Southern importance in the most neglected areas of African-American history. One of Franklin's most sought books: "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans", is used as a primary source of history teaching in the American history department (Brewer 416).
From an early age, Franklin was introduced to cultural racism as he grew up in a racially segregated Oklahoma. Relating to one particular racist incident, Franklin states how he still recalls the ejection of his mother from a train; her only crime was that she was sitting in a section that was 'only-for-Whites" (Franklin, "Mirror for Americans" 3). This particular incident made the family move to an 'all-black-town.'
Despite such prejudiced and harsh treatment, Franklin's parents always insisted to their son that he was in no way inferior to any other living human being, be they White or any other racial colour. It was his mother who filled Franklin with the inspiration to grow up as the first Black president of the United States; his mother was the dominant figure to urge him into dreaming of equality and inspiring him to 'defy' instead of 'cry' (Franklin, "Mirror for Americans" 4).
The power of defiance also led to the analysis and presentation of Black history. Franklin was aware that history has always controlled people's minds, perspectives, attitudes, and conduct. As Franklin recognized, history is crucial in the 'rehabilitation' of people's perspectives (Faust).
Writing history from the African-American perspective not only challenges the hollowness of the presented truth of the past but also changes one's perspective about the present and future. Therefore, for Franklin, the study of African-American history was never a second option; it was an imperative necessity (Franklin, "Mirror for Americans" 8).
Referring to his rule as a scholar, Franklin once stated "…the true scholar must pursue truth in his field; he must, as it were, ply his trade…. If one tried to escape…he would be haunted…he would be satisfied in no other pursuit" (Faust). In this regard, Franklin observed that the Black scholar ought to utilize his ingenuity and Black history, intellect, talent, and resources to fight those aspects alienating him and his fellowmen. This is the only way that he, the Black man, can contribute to forming solutions to the problems faced by his people and the American people in general (Faust).
Referring to the Jim Crow society, he was part of it since he grew up in Tulsa. The Jim Crow society damaged and stifled Franklin's senses and sense of honour (Ellsworth 19). The term Jim Crow applies to those laws of segregation between the White and the Black population living in the southern regions of the American continent. The Jim Crow law was legalized from the year 1876 until 1965, which reflected the Afro-American unequal status along with the lowest and most degrading places in public places to the coloured people were confined (Ellsworth 21).
All public places, such as schools, restaurants, and transportation, had separate and most degrading facilities for the African-American people. This law also reinforced the political and social exclusion of the Black people by exposing them to utter poverty and misery (Ellsworth 22). However, this law also laid the foundation of a long struggle for the rights of coloured people.
Franklin's father, Buck Franklin, was an attorney who sued the town of Tulsa after the infamous Tulsa Riot in 1921 (Ellsworth 6). The riot was a deadly outcome of a misunderstanding resulting from the incident of a Black man entering the elevator of a building so that he could get to the restroom. The operator of the elevator was a young white girl who was apparently frightened and screamed, making the man flee the place. People naturally assumed that the man had assaulted the White girl, and the riot which broke out culminated in the death of more than 250 people along with more than 1000 businesses and properties destroyed that originally belonged to Afro-American people (Ellsworth 8).
John's father's act of suing the city of Tulsa for the damages caused by the riot successfully reversed an ordinance that prohibited the affected African-American people from rebuilding their property and communities (Ellsworth 87). In his work, Franklin analyzed how history shaped the minds of humans by re-enforcing the belief that any oppression that existed in the past was justified. In this way, history also re-implemented the White nation's commitment to subjugate the Black people to slavery. Franklin also analyzed the role of movies, such as "Birth of a Nation" which was released in 1915 and evidently justified the re-establishment and restoration of the Klan in the early twentieth century (O'Grady 139).
In this way, Franklin did not only delimit his work in revising and criticizing the existing history of his time; on the contrary, he also overturned most of his contemporary interpretations by presenting history from a newer perspective; the perspective of a Black historian and scholar (Anderson and Moss 231). In his various books, lectures, interviews, and speeches, Franklin represented facts that other historians, critiques, and scholars had largely ignored.
He facts represented by Franklin were mainly kept buried in ancient newspapers, historical documents, and government records and archives that no one had bothered before Franklin to unravel and study and bring the relevant to the world's view (Franklin, "Mirror for Americans" 3). In fact, no other historian other than Franklin had ever taken up the cudgels to look at history from another perspective that determined the lives of the Blacks as much as did the lives of their White counterparts.
Among Franklin's works, his preliminary work revolved around re-writing the biography of the first Black historian George Washington Williams, who had died in 1891 and was long forgotten by the world until Franklin decided to unearth him and bring the man's work to the world's view. By stalking all works and legacies of the earliest African-American historian, Franklin rightfully initiated re-writing African-American history by presenting the full portrait of the Black intellectual who was an equal pioneer in re-shaping the lives of the oppressed black African-Americans (Franklin, "George Washington Williams, Historian").
Through his extensive research, Franklin successfully discovered the existing and embedded contradictory aspects that led to the foundation of the American "oppression of freedom" that was wrecking the lives of numerous "so-called free" African Americans who were residing in the northern part of the state of Carolina. In his work, Franklin demonstrated how, despite being 'free', the never-ending threat of violence was equally impacting and overshadowing the lives of White and Black Americans who were residing in the Southern parts of the American continent (Brewer 418).
The looming shadows of dread and violence were a controlling factor that was profoundly affecting the lives of the residential people. Franklin's books also helped in getting a clearer perspective of the African-American runaways about why they were carrying that insatiable hunger for freedom and liberty within their hearts and very existence. One of his most celebrated works in this regard is "From Slavery to Freedom", which was published in the year of 1958, where he addressed a global audience extending beyond the American borders in his attempt to "…explain it all" (Faust).
Referring to his exposure to Black slavery and the haunting impacts of it, Franklin was left quite humble and sober with the numerous incidents that he had witnessed as a child. His book "From Slavery to Freedom" rightfully portrays his sense of terror and the personal and profound impact of his witnessed instances of brutality and violence that left a deep mark on his soul, heart, and senses. Relating to the witnessed incidents, he (Franklin) reveals in his book, "…I had seen them lynch black men and distribute their ears, fingers, and other parts as souvenirs…. I had seen it all, and in the seeing, I had become bewildered and yet in the process lost my own innocence…" (Brewer 417).
It has been reported that Franklin spent the last months of his life in "amazement" at Obama's election as president of the United States. However, Franklin was also a staunch believer that more needed to be done so that a new and more "fee" history could lay the foundation for a better future for the American Nation in particular and the world in general. Franklin passed away on March 25, 2009 (Faust).
Works Cited
Anderson, Eric, and Alfred A. Moss. Dangerous Donations: Northern Philanthropy and Southern Black Education, 1902-1930. University of Missouri Press, 1999.
BlackPast.org. Franklin, John Hope (1915--2009) | The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/john-hope-franklin-1915. Accessed 31 Mar. 2018.
Brewer, W. M. "John Hope Franklin, From Slavery to Freedom A History of Negro Americans." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 54, no. 4, Oct. 1969, pp. 416–19. journals.uchicago.edu (Atypon), doi:10.2307/2716741.
Ellsworth, Scott. Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. LSU Press, 1992.
Faust, Drew Gilpin. "John Hope Franklin: Race & the Meaning of America." The New York Review of Books, Dec. 2015. www.nybooks.com, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/12/17/john-hope-franklin-race-meaning-america/.
Franklin, John Hope. "George Washington Williams, Historian." The Journal of Negro History, vol. 31, no. 1, Jan. 1946, pp. 60–90. journals.uchicago.edu (Atypon), doi:10.2307/2714968.
"Mirror for Americans: A Century of Reconstruction History." The American Historical Review, vol. 85, no. 1, 1980, pp. 1–14. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/1853422.
O'Grady, Desmond. "Birth of a Nation." Southerly, vol. 17, no. 3, Sept. 1956, p. 159.
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