The American Man of a Century

"Old hat" seems to be a term that's ingrained in John Hope Franklin's vocabulary. The prominent scholar has written several books chronicling African-American history, chaired history departments and accrued numerous professorships at several universities.

But in November, when the 91-year-old professor emeritus published his autobiography, Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin-detailing the life of the man who fathered the academic study of African-American history-"old hat" it was anything but.

"It was the end of an era for me," he says. "I thought I should look back on my life and see what I had done or what circumstances had done to me."

And after making his life public, the author and editor of 17 books launched a five-month promotional tour. He traveled around the country, touting his story-that is, how a product of the Oklahoma Jim Crow era went on to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and redirect the social course of history in 20th-century America.

Despite the rigorous nature of a promotional tour, Franklin says he's holding up just fine. He has an air of modesty and humility characteristic befitting the man charged by former President Bill Clinton himself to chair the President's Initiative on Race.

But he presented a slightly different attitude when he was on faculty at North Carolina Central University-then called North Carolina College for Negroes-in the 1940s. While there, he had a memorable conversation with a Duke professor.

"He talked about segregated society, and he merely thought that I should do what I could to maintain it, since he thought I had a good job at North Carolina Central," Franklin says.

Ever the overcomer, Franklin replied with a calm resilience that he still possesses today. "I told him then that I would look forward to the day when I would be competing for his job," he says matter-of-factly.