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I had originally checked this book out at the library and in the course of reading it decided that I should own a copy.The very intellectual Dr. I am very grateful I was allowed to stumble accross it. This book was inspiratinal to me. Franklin has written this book in a way that seems to convey his personality. It helped me to gain a higher degree of respect for Dr Franklin considering what he has done and when he accomplished those achievements(along with maintaining his family). This book also gave me a greater appreciation of the opportunities that are now open to African-Americans as a people. I felt like I got to know him, the man, every so slightly in a personally way. I wish I had read this earlier in my life.
The details certanly added to the life story. I just listened to the audio version of this book. And as for Publishers Review that "missing entirely is the emotional response to the ubiquitous racism"--Franklin clearly lived it but lived above the racism. Franklin's life was indeed fascinating--truly achieving against the odds. It's too bad thatPublishers Review refers to the details as minutiae.Franklin had a way of being eloquent and folksy at the same time. If one wants to know about the racism in our country, there are dozens of other books by both Franklin and others to be read. Franklin--and others--analyzed the life of African Americans and racism in America but also by example helped to uplift all--white and black--and not just focus on the negative.
He played his position and influenced thousands. His focus was on educating himself and others.
It shows that although with a black president, black people still need to be taken seriously as a people by the majority of this country. Only compliant I have is the constant story of his moving processes.
This document is the picture America needs to read. You don't have to be bombastic as Al Sharpton or as appeasing as Barack Obama to get your point across.
The story of segregation in housing was fine but many of the others could have been better. Franklin is an important testament of what blackness is.
Through his actions, he felt he could change students' minds which could change a nation. Definitely insightful.
Gould of St. I was only able to make it through Chapter 7 (first 102 pages), and decided at that point, to read a chapter further on in the book to see if the author would drop what was a boastful litany of his honors received and high praise from others. (Prof). Perhaps this is what Pres. society. Franklin's career and experiences seem so unique and important, that I was really looking forward to this autobiography.
Franklin on not letting his ego get the better of him, as opposed to offering congratulations on Franklin's Harvard PhD.I will have to try one of his non-biographical works at some point, as with his credentials, he surely would have his history down to a science. Unfortunately, two pages into a later chapter I found no change, and decided to stop reading.Mr. Augustine's College saw in him, prompting Gould to 'lecture' Prof. I have to agree with the unfavorable review from Publisher's Weekly. I've never before read an autobiography where the author couldn't pause in expressing such a high opinion of his/herself long enough to get their story told. I only wish he'd been able to humble himself enough to make his autobiography palatable.I'm reviewing the book at 2 stars rather than 1, as behind the bragging are real successes and accomplishments, at at time when minority achievement was terribly difficult in the larger, U.S.
From that standpoint, it could be a good "yes you can." touchstone for those who struggle to overcome the disadvantages of bigotry, in any form.
Franklin, who took his Ph.D in history at Harvard, has written not only the scarred story of his people but of discrimination that has never ended. Young Franklin did the actual work.This was the same newspaper that, reportedly, supported legalized lynching of African Americans. Afterward, over a century of "Jim Crow" laws and traditions made blacks lead poverty-stricken lives in segregated schools, lunch counters, restrooms -- every aspect of life in America was separate and unequal.But his is a criticism tempered with knowledge and love of his country and his fellow students, historians and citizens, regardless of color.Here is a figure of history who, as a young boy, was not allowed by the white community of Tulsa to do even the simplest jobs, like delivering a daily newspaper, the Tulsa Tribune. Then, she shoved him away and crossed by herself.This was the atmosphere in which Dr. Franklin delivered the newspapers by proxy -- only white men could be official carriers.
Franklin formed the fortitude to build a life that would fight for freedom, justice and equality for all. Dr. Franklin learned another lesson: the national press corps refused to either report, or report accurately, the workings of the committee.The Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and other major news outlets refused to send reporters to meetings of the national conversation on race."'For his entire year as chairman,' wrote a reporter for The Boston Globe, 'Franklin never met face-to-face with Clinton.' This was, of course, stunningly inaccurate,'" Franklin wrote.This autobiography is, in itself, a national conversation on race and raises questions by which could hang the fate of the nation: in 2001 ".there were more young black men in jails and penitentiaries than in college.". Even today, there are no reliable statistics on how many African Americans died in that tragedy.Throughout his illustrious career as an historian, teacher and presidential advisor, Dr.
His lawyer-father finally managed to move the family to Tulsa, after a now-famous riot in 1921 destroyed the Greenwood District, the center of black commerce in the community. That uprising by the South still splits America, and African Americans have never truly been free.Dr. He and a fellow scholar were nearly lynched because they interviewed workers on a plantation in defiance of the plantation owner's orders.This winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, paints a picture throughout his autobiography of a nation that has lost the talents of an entire race of people, simply because of its prejudice in every area of society.In later life, he was reminded again of racist America. Slavery was abolished in the 19th century after this country lost hundreds of thousands in a civil war. She accepted his help, until she found out he was black. Franklin never wavers in his criticism of a "free" country that enslaves an entire race.
Discrimination in housing continues. It was.He recounts another experience as a youngster in Tulsa. John Hope Franklin has been through a certain kind of hell prevalent in this country for centuries -- the hell of discrimination, the hell of being looked upon by whites as something less than human. Through his long life, he continues the battle to change and better his country.Sometimes, that battle became dangerous. During Franklin's college days, he recounted being part of a research team that talked with former slaves, plantation workers and sharecroppers.
He says it best: "At age sixty I was ordered to serve as a porter for a white person in a New York hotel, at age eighty to hang up a white guest's coat at a Washington club where I was not an employee but a member."Yet, when President Clinton asked him to chair the President's Initiative on Race, he did so willingly.
He saw an elderly white woman, who was blind, trying to cross a street alone.
The majority of African Americans still live in low-income neighborhoods.This book is a poetic, evocative plea for fairness and growth as a nation.
As a young boy, he grew up in a small town in Oklahoma that was founded by African Americans.
It remains a 'must read' for every American, no matter what race.It has the rise and sweep of a great work of art, authored by a great and remarkable American, Dr.
During the Tulsa race riots in 1921, that same newspaper urged the Greenwood area be burned to the ground.
As a Boy Scout, Franklin knew it was an honorable deed to help her.
The glass ceiling for African American employment remains.
John Hope Franklin.
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