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"We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey."

 

- John Hope Franklin

ABOUT FRANKLIN GLOBAL

Franklin Global is specially-positioned to assist your organization and key stakeholders (staff, board, customers or clients) in bettering understanding the complex history of race in the United States and the Americas.
 
Launched in 2019 by renowned cultural historian and scholar John W. Franklin, Franklin Global provides you with unparalleled insights and sound advice on the intertwined history of race, and the overlapping cultures (African American, Latinx, Asian-American) in the United States and rest of the Americas in ways that are remarkably accessible and profoundly inspiring to people of all ages and professional interests. 
 
John Franklin’s distinguished career and standing as a global authority on the African American experience was inspired by his father, the groundbreaking historian John Hope Franklin, a prolific scholar of African American history- especially about slavery and Reconstruction- whose counsel and advice was of great aid to the civil rights struggle.
 
Franklin Global's mission is deeply informed by the experiences, values, struggles, and accomplishments of John's father, his mother, Aurelia Whittington Franklin, a librarian, his grandfather, Buck Colbert Franklin, an attorney whose law office was destroyed in the infamous Tulsa Massacre of 1921, and other forebears, including an educator, civil rights leaders, farmers, and a former slave. Their stories underlie Franklin Global's foundational commitment to helping its clients interpret and navigate the struggle of equality facing all people, and to illuminating how the African American experience has shaped and continues to shape the Americas. 
 
Reared on the campus of Howard University, Karen Roberts Franklin, was exposed to medicine through her father, Dr. James E. Roberts. She began working in his Obstetrics Gynecology office at the age of twelve.  Both fathers were university professors and both mothers, Aurelia Whittington Franklin and Sylvesta Roach Roberts, were librarians.
 
Karen worked in the corporate, health and real estate sectors, she brings a unique perspective and first-hand understanding of the historic discrimination and disparities that have confronted the African American community in those industry sectors. Karen is an advocate for equity and an advisor to all generations and diverse organizations on the many distinct business challenges facing the black community.
 
There is greater thirst today for more knowledge about the African American journey and issues of equality throughout the Americas. Racial disparities still abound. Racism continues to destroy the lives and livelihoods of far too many people through criminal injustice, lack of healthcare, under-employment, inadequate education, immigration policies, poor housing, etc. Too many of us have been taught too little or only curated parts of our shared history with African American, Asian American and Latinx cultures. Many individuals and organizations are realizing they need to access to more resources – deeper expertise, information and analyses –to gain a deeper perspective about the evolving African American journey in order to advance in our challenging times.

That journey of greater awareness, understanding and connection is a pathway Franklin Global is uniquely qualified to illuminate and pave for its clients.

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Featured In

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Featured Videos

Get inspired as John W. Franklin speaks at a Thomas Jefferson's Monticello event and explains Slavery & Freedom.

Watch John W. Franklin converse with Scott Pelley 

Uncovering the Greenwood Massacre

CBS 60 Minutes Special 

Watch John W. Franklin presenting to the

National Association of Attorneys General Presidential Summit, Washington, DC. 

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