Clinton recalls 'angry, happy man'

In October 1995, on the eve of his reception of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, John Hope Franklin was handed a coat check by a white woman while entering a Washington D.C. club.

The woman had assumed Franklin was a club employee and not a patron. The then-80-year-old black historian patiently responded that if she would ask an attendant-all of whom were in uniform-then she could perhaps retrieve her coat.

Former president Bill Clinton retold this account from Franklin's autobiography "Mirror to America" at an event celebrating the lives of Franklin and his wife, Aurelia Franklin, last Thursday in an overflowing Duke Chapel decorated with the Franklins' signature orchids.

"We're laughing," Clinton said to the amused audience. "He did write this in a funny way, and he wrote it in a way that you knew he didn't think it was funny. He was a genius in being a passionate rationalist-an angry, happy man. A happy, angry man."

Clinton was the last of 12 speakers-a pool of Franklin's family, colleagues and friends, including Franklin and Aurelia's son John Whittington Franklin and trustee emerita Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans.

But the 42nd U.S. president was just one of many who alluded to Franklin's ineffable character, indignant sense of humor and adept culinary skills.

Franklin and Aurelia's life together began when they met at Fisk University in the early 1930s.

Vivian Mildred Corbett Bailey, Franklin's childhood friend from his hometown of Tulsa, Okla., described him as the "sex symbol of the '30s." And as a loyal Oklahoman, Bailey said she was convinced not to like the "girl from North Carolina" when she heard of Franklin and Aurelia's relationship-but then she met Aurelia.

"John Hope and Aurelia were our American royalty-our symbols of goodness," Semans said.

Throughout his marriage, and over the course of his life, Franklin was an academic, activist and mentor. He taught everywhere, from across his dining table that was littered with writings to an airport restaurant-an occasion Franklin's close friend Vernon Jordan still recalls.

"I cannot remember a time in his presence when I did not learn from him," said Jordan, an attorney and a civil rights advocate. "We have his books, his essays, his speeches, his interviews to constantly remind us of his towering intellect, his fierce commitment to vigorous scholarship, his acute perception, his profound patriotism.... He was a teacher who taught us to believe in the shield of justice and the sword of truth. A role model whose career made us dream large dreams and work to secure them. An agent of change who helped transform the way an entire nation thought of itself."

The founding father of African American studies, Franklin wrote a number of historical works, most notably "From Slavery to Freedom," a story chronicling the experiences of African Americans since their departure from Africa until the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950s and 1960s.

He left America with a "usable past," said Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, who co-authors the 9th edition of Franklin's acclaimed book. Franklin didn't just write about history-he wrote history, she said.

Through his role in history, Franklin left a lasting legacy of scholarship and a lesson to students to find their calling, Duke President Richard Brodhead said.

"On any given day, at any college or university in this country, some man or woman could make such a discovery of their promise," Brodhead said. "And when they do, the world had better be prepared to change. That is the hope given to us by John Hope Franklin."

But Franklin's mark on history extends far beyond the ink in his books and his namesake institutions at Duke. Clinton said his last message to Congress on his final day in the oval office was "a plea" to address unresolved issues in Franklin's report regarding racial discrimination in law enforcement, education and health care, among others-findings from Franklin's term heading the White House panel on race. This final push was Franklin's "lasting legacy to you as an American citizen," Clinton told the audience.

"We're a different country now, we have been working for 10 years to become a communitarian country," he said. "After being a country known for our divisions between 1968 and 2008, now people know us as a country known by a unity. [Franklin's] life and work is no small measurement to produce that."

Despite his historic contributions, Franklin was still modest, humorous and a family man. He inspired those he loved to learn foreign languages and was "always a teaser," his goddaughter Marian Bennett said in an interview.

"The heavens smiled on us to have him in our lives," she said. "He had a humility about him.... As famous as he was, it never went to his head."

In response to the celebration, Higginbotham, Victor S. Thomas professor of history and African American studies at Harvard University, said the ceremony was one Franklin "certainly could have enjoyed."

The noted historian had a certain quality about him that Clinton perhaps described best-in which indignation and leading a positive life were not mutually exclusive, Brodhead said in an interview following the ceremony.

"He found a way to be indignant, but to be dignant," Brodhead said.

Franklin was "tough from the trenches of a political struggle," and a brilliant historian and human being, Clinton concluded.

"[He was] a man who was both determined, self-reliant and profoundly grateful," Clinton said. "He was the ultimate passionate rationalist-the ultimate angry, happy man."