“In 1945, after attending a college commencement, John Hope Franklin was returning by train to his home in Durham, North Carolina. Blacks were uncomfortably crowded into the half baggage car while five white men had the entire next coach to themselves. The five were German prisoners of war, who, Franklin recalled, ‘seemed to relish our discomfort. They laughed at us all the way to Durham. They could have wondered what we had been fighting for.’” --Ethan Bronner, from Battle for Justice Historian John Hope Franklin, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, was born 100 years ago today in Rentiesville, Oklahoma. My challenge, Franklin wrote, 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. jhfcenter.org/john-hope-franklin/
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:29:26 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015