January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009

John Hope Franklin, pioneering African American scholar and educator died March 25, 2009 at the age of 94.

Quotations by John Hope Franklin From the Duke University website

On being an historian and an activist

“I think knowing one’s history leads one to act in a more enlightened fashion. I can not imagine how knowing one’s history would not urge one to be an activist.”
Emerge
March 1994

“I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live.”
Associated Press
October 2005

On the history of African Americans
“In discussing the history of a people one must distinguish between what has actually happened and what those who have written the history have said has happened. So far as the actual history of the American Negro is concerned, there is nothing particularly new about it. It is an exciting story, a remarkable story. It is the story of slavery and freedom, humanity and inhumanity, democracy and its denial. It is tragedy and triumph, suffering and compassion, sadness and joy.”
“The New Negro History,” Crisis
February 1977