John Hope Franklin: "The Ultimate Passionate Rationalist"

DURHAM, N.C. -- This was a different kind of memorial. Yes, each speaker acknowledged that John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin were "giants." But everyone on Thursday's program – from loving son, John Whittington Franklin, to former President Bill Clinton – also spoke of quiet moments and deep friendships that brought the giants down to human size.

The great historian was a cultivator of orchids who could also cook up some mean barbecue. Then, he'd entertain and regale, though you'd better have your facts in order during discussion time. His students loved his support and his high standards. He was, in Clinton's words, "the ultimate passionate rationalist. An angry, happy man -- a happy, angry man."

For just over two hours, the imposing chapel at Duke University, where Franklin served as teacher and mentor, became almost homey. It barely contained a joyous celebration, punctuated by the sounds of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. The Franklins met at the historically black Nashville university in the 1930's; June 11 would have been their 69^th anniversary.

John Hope Franklin died in March at 94. His scholarly 1947 work, "From Slavery to Freedom," wove blacks into the complex story of America, and became a guide for historians that followed. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Harvard professor and co-author of the ninth edition of that book, spoke on Thursday of the "transformative power of his versatile life."

Franklin's research laid a foundation for the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that struck down "separate but equal." At the beginning of his life, his father's law office was burned down in the Tulsa, Okla., race riots of 1921. And just last year, Franklin saw the election of the country's first black president. His life was a historian's search for truth and an activist's fight for justice.

And at every step, Aurelia – who died in 1999 -- was there, his partner in life and work. Childhood friend Vivian Mildred Corbett Bailey said the girls in Tulsa were a little jealous of the North Carolinian who got their John Hope, until she met Aurelia -- "genteel," Bailey called her.

To Emily Mann, artistic director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, N.J., Aurelia Franklin is the only person, other than her mother, she could tell anything. Her father, Arthur Mann – historian and biographer – taught at the University of Chicago with Franklin. The pair marched together in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. The families were neighbors in the integrated Hyde Park neighborhood. "I knew it was rare," she told me after the celebration. "She taught me how to navigate," Mann said of Aurelia Franklin. "Meanness, unfairness, rage, envy. There is still so much work to do," Mann said. But "hope outweighs fear. I get that from the Franklins."

Thavolia Glymph, the chair of the department of African and African American studies at Duke, spoke of Franklin's "single-minded commitment to scholarship" and his "moral poise." He needed it to overcome the "daunting architecture" of racism, when he had to research at libraries, archives and universities that had no plan to accommodate what was impossible in their view, an "American Negro scholar." Duke president Richard Brodhead took note of Franklin's "upright posture," the physical embodiment of "human decency."

Vernon Jordan, lawyer, presidential advisor and friend of the Franklins, talked about the "profound patriotism" of an "agent of change," whose actions helped the country live up to its noble words. Jordan was as much preacher as speaker, which Clinton – who followed -- acknowledged when he said, "You did everything but pass the plate."
He's still pretty good at this sort of thing.

President Clinton appointed Franklin to head the Advisory Board to the President's Initiative on Race in 1997. He awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. But the night before he was to receive the honor, in an incident Franklin wrote about in his 2005 autobiography, "Mirror to America," the 80-year-old historian was mistaken for a private-club attendant by a woman demanding her coat. Franklin was "a man of astonishing dignity," Clinton said, who knew you "cannot be humiliated unless you give someone permission to do it."

"We are a different country" today, Clinton said. "Franklin's life and work helped to produce that."