My Life and an Era - by John Hope Franklin & John Whittington Franklin
"My father's life represented many layers of the human experience--freedman and Native American, farmer and rancher, rural educator and urban professional."--John Hope Franklin
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Buck Colbert Franklin (1879-1960) led an extraordinary life; from his youth in what was then the Indian Territory to his practice of law in twentieth-century Tulsa, he was an observant witness to the changes in politics, law, daily existence, and race relations that transformed the wide-open Southwest. Fascinating in its depiction of an intelligent young man's coming of age in the days of the Land Rush and the closing of the frontier, My Life and an Era is equally important for its reporting of the triracial culture of early Oklahoma.
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Rounded out by an older man's reflections on race, religion, culture, and law, "My Life and an Era" presents a true, firsthand account of a unique yet defining place and time in the nation's history, as told by an eloquent and impassioned writer.
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Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
John Hope Franklin lived through America’s most defining twentieth-century transformation, the dismantling of legally protected racial segregation. A renowned scholar, he has explored that transformation in its myriad aspects, notably in his 3.5-million-copy bestseller, "From Slavery to Freedom". Born in 1915, he, like every other African American, could not help but participate: he was evicted from whites-only train cars, confined to segregated schools, threatened—once with lynching—and consistently subjected to racism’s denigration of his humanity. Yet he managed to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard; become the first black historian to assume a full professorship at a white institution, Brooklyn College; and be appointed chair of the University of Chicago’s history department and, later, John B. Duke Professor at Duke University. He has reshaped the way African American history is understood and taught and become one of the world’s most celebrated historians, garnering over 130 honorary degrees.
