The La Guardia Lecture Series: Dr. John Hope Franklin

Until his death in March 2009, Dr. John Hope Franklin was the dean of African-American historians and the author of many books, including the landmark "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans." An activist as well as a scholar, he worked with Thurgood Marshall to strike down segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education case and marched with the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. His writing helped to overturn earlier histories which rationalized Jim Crow, slavery and white supremacy. He became the first African-American to chair a history department at Brooklyn College, and the first African-American president of the American Historical Association. President Bill Clinton awarded the Medal of Freedom to Franklin and appointed him to the Advisory Board to the Presidents Initiative on Race. His writing was a harbinger and an agent of change in the continuing struggle for equality in the United States. (Video edited by Samuel Lieberman)

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