Born: January 2, 1915, Rentiesville, OK

Education: Fisk University, A.B. honors, 1936; Harvard University, M.A., 1937, Ph.D., 1942

Author and editor of more than twenty books, Franklin is best known for From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (1947, 9th ed. 2011); sales are more than 3 million. He came of age, finished college, and began teaching at black colleges in the Jim Crow South. His career saw distinguished professorships at Chicago and Duke; learned society presidencies; and academic and civic awards and honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995).

Franklin determined to integrate American life and history. He wrote memoranda on the Fourteenth Amendment for the Brown v. Board of Education legal team; marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. for voting rights; urged affirmative action in education, employment, and politics; and chaired the advisory board of the President's Race Commission (1996). His scholarship not only integrated the black experience into the national narrative; it also interpreted how black–white relations crucially defined American ideas and institutions on race, ethnicity, gender, and class. Stressing those points in Race Commission forums across the country, he argued that they could inform public policies to end racial discrimination. One America in the 21st Century: Forging a New Future (1998), the Commission's final report, restated his argument and hope.