March 26, 2009

• John Hope Franklin (2 January 1915 – 25 March 2009)

  He was a scholar and historian.  He was the historian of African-Americans’ journey on this continent.  His grandfather had been a slave.  He told a story of when he was six years old, and was forced off a train by a conductor, with his mother and sister.  “And I was crying, and my mother said, `What are you crying about? … He put you off the train because we were sitting where white people were supposed to … And if you do that, you won’t be crying. You’ll be defying.’” 

  His mother used to assure him that he was “good enough” to become President of the U.S.A., but they knew it was such a ludicrous idea that whenever it came up they would get a good laugh out of it.  He lived to see Barack Obama inaugurated to that office, and was thrilled.  “President Barack Obama says Americans have a richer understanding of their identity and journey because of the contributions of historian John Hope Franklin.” (WKBT.com)

  President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Franklin told Gwen Ifill of PBS:

  In anticipation of the receiving of the Medal of Freedom, I was ready to celebrate even the night before, and I invited to my club in Washington a number of my friends in a private dinner which I was giving.

  And then I realized that it was getting a little late, and I thought maybe my guests who had not arrived might be downstairs wondering where I was, and so I decided to excuse myself and go downstairs to see where they were or if they had arrived.

  And I came down the winding staircase at the Cosmos Club. And at the bottom of the staircase, there was a white woman with a coat check in her hand. And she saw me, and she said, “Here, you go and get my coat. It’s checked.”

  And I was sort of shocked that she would pick me out to go and get her coat. And I said — and I realized then that she probably thought that I was there to serve. Why should I be in the Cosmos Club if I wasn’t there to serve her?

  And I pulled her over. I said, “Lady, now,” as patient as I could, I said, “Lady, if you would take this check and give it to one of the attendants here, one of the uniformed attendants, and all of the attendants here are in uniform, just give it to one of them and perhaps will you get your coat.” And I walked away from her.

  Such a classy man!  He died Wednesday, at age 94, of congestive heart failure.

  • 7:25 pm
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