JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN

John Hope Franklin, a founding father of the field of African-American studies, a giant in the Civil Rights movement, a boundlessly energetic teacher and a gracious friend to many, passed away at Duke Hospital Wednesday morning. He was 94.

Franklin died of congestive heart failure after several months of faltering health, friends said. At his request, neither a funeral nor a memorial service will be held for Franklin. The University will celebrate the life of the James B. Duke professor emeritus of history and his late wife Aurelia Franklin in the Chapel at 11 a.m. June 11, which would have been their 69th wedding anniversary.

"It's a very sad day at this University-we're talking about a person of towering intellect, a historian who created the field of African-American history," President Richard Brodhead said. "He gave us a sense of history that shapes American race relations. I think John Hope Franklin is the one who most powerfully taught us that African-American history is American history and he worked out the implications for that for the past, for the present and for the future.... If you go anywhere in this country and talk to anyone knowledgeable about race relations, they know the name of John Hope Franklin and how much we owe to him."

Franklin was a historian who made history as much as he reflected on it, contributing to the Brown v. Board of Education case and marching alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Ala.

As the first black department chair at Brooklyn College, the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke and the first black president of the American Historical Association, Franklin made a career out of shattering color barriers. Even so, Franklin had said he felt a measure of disbelief when a young Illinois senator he had spent several hours advising at a campaign stop in North Carolina won the popular vote in November.

Franklin was proud of his association with Barack Obama, but he said he never expected to live to see the day a black man was elected president of the United States.

"Because of the life John Hope Franklin lived, the public service he rendered, and the scholarship that was the mark of his distinguished career, we all have a richer understanding of who we are as Americans and our journey as a people," President Barack Obama said in a statement. "Dr. Franklin will be deeply missed, but his legacy is one that will surely endure. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to his loved ones, as our nation mourns his loss."

William Chafe, Alice Mary Baldwin professor of history, noted that Franklin's confrontation of race helped to lay the groundwork for Obama's historic feat.

Mollie's lessons guided her son throughout his life. Franklin could rarely pursue his love of learning without confronting the force of racism first-even at Duke.

Franklin first visited Duke for work on his dissertation as a Harvard University Ph.D. student. While on campus, Franklin logged long hours in the library though he could not use the bathroom or eat in the dining hall. Duke was still segregated, but Franklin was not fazed.

"He would use the library and learn all he could, and then he would leave with his head held high," Chafe said. "This was someone who had an extraordinary sense of dignity and self-empowerment. He never let anyone forget that he was a proud person."

Forty years later, Franklin came out of retirement to accept a teaching position at the university whose policies had once oppressed him. Durham was a city in which Franklin felt very much at home, and he was willing to forgive and forget Duke's record of racism, Chafe explained.

"I think he always understood that change comes with painful consequences, but you must always transcend the pain and move forward," Chafe said. "He was proud of the fact that he was able to use Duke's library and proud that Duke had gotten beyond that point."

Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations and a Duke undergraduate student at the time, remembers the announcement of Franklin's arrival vividly. The spirit of change on campus was palpable, he said.

"He certainly was already a giant in the field, and his arrival at Duke signified almost the start of a new generation at Duke of both scholarship and Duke being a place where the understanding of issues of race and society was going to be studied in a serious way," Schoenfeld said. "John Hope Franklin's arrival at Duke quickly gave the University a whole new level of credibility in this field."

Teaching with Grace

Ben Reese, vice president for institutional equity, remembers the first time he met Franklin as though it was yesterday.

"Thirteen years ago when I came to Duke, I was in my office in the Bryan Center and he stopped by and asked me if I was new. And then he said, 'Young man, I'd like to take you out to lunch.' About a week later, I finally worked up the courage to call him up," Reese said. "One of the qualities of John's character was that he always listened carefully to everything that you said so that if you saw John a week or a month later, he would refer back in detail to the earlier conversation. There weren't polite exchanges with John-there were humble connections that he would make with people, real connections, authentic connections."

Although Reese was never formally enrolled in his class, Franklin-the consummate teacher-was a mentor to all whom he encountered on campus, Reese said. Franklin's patience and eagerness to lend a helping hand never faded, no matter how far he was from the classroom, Jarrett noted.

"His little mother-in-law lived with him at the end of her life, when she was very sick," Jarrett said, her voice cracking with emotion. "He brought her to the kitchen table every night to sit with the family. He would cut up her food for her at first, but she would be able to feed herself after he got her started. It was that kind of humanness that was so special."

After his retirement as a Duke history professor in 1985, Franklin spent more time tending to his garden than in the classroom, but he never lost the instinct to nurture.

One winter, when a power outage left most of the city without heat, Hart House was one of the few buildings on campus that had a generator. Former president Nannerl Keohane, who named The John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies in 2001, said she invited Franklin to wait out the storm with her. She recalled urging him to bring his prized orchids along, but Franklin refused-he was confident they would weather it.

"We all think of orchids as being very fragile, but I think one of the things he loved about them was that, he used to say, they're very hardy," Jarrett said. "Just give them the right amount of water, a little attention and talk to them, he'd tell me-that's all they need."

Though his health began to falter in his last year of life, Franklin was always eager to speak before a crowd. His appearance at these last speaking engagements was fragile-but not unlike his favorite blooms, Franklin surprised audiences with his strength, Jarrett said.

"He walked up to the stage looking frail and sick, like he really shouldn't be there," she said. "And then when he started talking, he sounded so strong you thought he was a 40-year-old man in perfect health.... Everybody hung onto his every word."

During lunch several days before a hospitalization in February, Franklin radiated only peace, Chafe said.

"Someone came up to him and said, 'How are you?' And he said, 'I'm in transition,'" Chafe said. "I think he understood what was going to happen to him, and he was ready."

Jarrett said Franklin did not tell her about his plans to forego a funeral, but she said she was not surprised. He loved history, and he was secure of his place in it.

"I think he simply did not want to make a big fuss," Chafe said. "His life stood for what it stood for, and that was good. He did it all with grace and dignity-those are the two best words to describe him."

Emmeline Zhao contributed reporting.