Upon hearing about the passing of historian and scholar Dr. John Hope Franklin, March 25, 2009 at age 94, my mind drifted back to my high school days eons ago when I was thankfully introduced to a book written by Dr. Franklin, a book that heavily influenced my path in education.
It was the early 1960’s, Ms. Peanages was a first year language teacher at John Muir High School in Pasadena CA. Being one of only two high schools in town, Muir was were most of the city’s Black students were routinely funneled for enrollment. Ms. Peanages seemed to genuinely relish her position and was very encouraging, even overly so with the Black students in the class.
One day, beaming with the expression of a great idea, she stood in front of the class and naively, yet enthusiastically, encouraged the students to interview family and neighbors about slave stories that may have been passed along, to write the stories down before they were lost and share them with the class.
Her suggestion was met with absolute silence! The white students hid their faces behind hands or stared distantly out the windows while most of the Blacks students shrank so small in their seats they became invisible. Just the mention of the word slavery brought about embarrassment and humiliation, a word never to cross your lips, especially in the presence of mixed company. Our history textbook covered the entire Civil War without once mentioning slaves or slavery!
The ringing bell came to everybody’s rescue. I lagged behind the others leaving the classroom and approached Ms. Peanages, her disappointment visibly plastered on her face, but she quickly lit up when I stated I was interested in doing the project, not only was I interested, I was excited about the whole idea.
As I stepped into the project, my enthusiasm was hit in the face with a cold bucket of water. My questions mentioning slavery, although some responses were polite, many more greeted my queries with denial, anger, and even hostility;
“Why you want to talk about something like that?”
“I don’t know nothing about no slavery and the school ought not be teaching about that.”
After this rough baptism into the reality of the way things were, my older sister Lois, with whom I was living at the time, came strongly to my rescue. Lois was uncompromising and prideful about who she was and naturally scoffed at those that would deny their heritage. “That’s part of our history, you can’t pretend it never happened”.
A few days later she handed me a book, From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin. From the pages of this book, a sea of knowledge poured forth. For the first time in my life I was reading and learning about myself, about my ancestry, about my history and more importantly, the words jumping off the pages left me feeling uplifted and proud. I could appreciate Dr. Franklin’s scholarship even back then, his annotations, references and factual detail led me to better understand what was meant by the word, scholarship.
I eagerly took my place in front of the class to give my report, not on collected slave stories, but on the Middle Passage and the African Diaspora in the Americas as I continuously cited Dr. Franklin’s book. I can remember the smile on Ms. Peanages’ face as she listened to the questions and comments raised by classmates, classmates now willingly discussing a subject that weeks earlier had been quietly forbidden or too shameful to breach.
In the years to follow, my interest in history continued to grow. I routinely browsed the racks in both new and used bookstores and heard many a library closing chime as I found myself lost the stacks. Dr. Franklin’s introduction to African American history led me to others who had written on the subject; John G. Jackson, John Henrik Clarke, Cheikh Anta Diop, Gilberto Freyre, Chancellor Williams, Lerone Bennett, Basil Davidson, Herodotus and other Ancient Greeks to name a few of many. But it was my resolute sister introducing me to Dr. John Hope Franklin’s From Slavery to Freedom, that opened my mind and inserted a love for the subject of history that never waned.
Mural, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Library, Charlotte, North Carolina
In October of 2007, I had the opportunity to attend the 92nd annual convention of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founding organization for Black History Month, in Charlotte, North Carolina. On this memorable occasion, ninety-two year old Dr. John Hope Franklin was the keynote speaker.
I stood at the back of an overflowing dining hall as Dr. Franklin rose from the table of dignitaries to address the assembled. From his slender, demure frame, a powerful voice burst forth, soaring above the amplification, crashing the confines of the room and rattling throughout the corridors of the hotel. He spoke with the authority of a pioneer who over six decades earlier—when the history of slaves nor their descendants was considered serious scholarship—veered off the road least traveled to blaze his own path, a path that led him to writing and speaking forcefully about the unmentionable elephant in the room.
In documenting the crime of the millennium, a crime that some descendants of both perpetrator and victim alike wished would forever be erased from memory, Dr. Franklin permanently altered narratives on American history and established a more accurate paradigm from which the discipline henceforth would be viewed and studied.
On this night, Dr. Franklin spoke with the wisdom of 92 years. He spoke with the knowledge gained from nearly a century of life. He spoke with such zeal that attendees could only marvel at his energy and stamina. He spoke and ventured in to realms of history that only an pioneering historian and scholar would dare tread. What a wonderful evening it was.
Sylvia Cyrus, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Okeyo Ajamu Jumal
The following morning, while visiting in the hotel restaurant with Sylvia Cyrus, Executive Director of ASALH, it was my good fortune to have Dr. John Hope Franklin walk over and join us. I must have looked awe struck as I welcomed Dr. Franklin. He grinned broadly while clasping my hand firmly. It is rare when you have the opportunity to meet an individual of Dr. Franklin’s enormous stature. And as I stood there, still holding on to his strong grip, I was struck by the reality of it all—I was in the company of, and shaking hands with a giant.
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