 Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Valerie Jordan, and I am a member of the North Carolina Board of Transportation, and I represent this county and the county of the Division of Fine. It is a great to see each and every one of you again welcome as we dedicate a portion of Interstate 85 from Colmville Road to U.S. 70 bypass to the John Cole Franklin Highway. This is truly a very special occasion. Dr. Franklin made such significant impact for North Carolina and the people that live in it. And because of that, this is the reason why you're here today and the amount of folks that's joining us today. We are honored to have Governor Roy Cooper here today. Mayor Bill Bailey, Secretary Fox is here with us today. Now with that being said, we also have some of our elected officials here this morning from various cities, towns and counties. And I would like for each of those individuals to please stand and be recognized. We nominate those guests as well. University of Hopel Jazz Ensemble. Are we ready for the presentation of the Doctor of the Colors? Officer! Proceed! Hopel Jazz Ensemble, today we'll be performing our edition of the National Anthem and the Black National Anthem. We ask that you please stand. That of our faith tradition here in our city. Those with faith and those with no faith. So we offer this prayer in recognition of that richness of our culture here in the Durham. Let us pray. God of Moses, the law giver. God of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. God of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God of all creation. We ask that you would be pleased with what we do here today. That your spirit and justice of love and inclusion might animate this day. We thank you for the powerful act of remembering and for the sacred act of naming. And as we gather today to name a section of our highway after our son, our brother, our leader, the Eminent John Hope Franklin. May our naming remind us of the importance of each of our names and each of our stories. Come now. Lighten this room with your presence that we may go out and lighten the world. It is in your name we pray and give thanks. Amen. I introduce our first speaker, former United States Secretary of Transportation Anthony Fox. Mr. Fox served as United States Secretary of Transportation from 2013 to 2017. Previously, he served as the Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina from 2009 to 2013. He was first elected to the City Council in 2005. Upon his 2009 Mayor victory, he became the youngest Mayor of Charlotte and is the second African American Mayor. Mr. Fox is also the one who requested the designation for today of the Dr. John H. Franklin Highway. And I can say without a doubt the community here thanks you, sir, and everyone who requested this dedication. Mr. Fox, if you would please join me. He's going to begin our remarks. Good afternoon. It's great to be here today. I was actually not supposed to be here today. And I want to thank the planners for making room for a spontaneous show-off, we call it, in politics. But I had to be here today. This has been a team effort. And I can tell you that from the Governor of North Carolina, my good friend Roy Cooper, who enthusiastically embraced this idea of what I call them about it in the waning days of the Obama Administration, to Congressman Butterfield, to Mayor Bell, to the City Council here at Durham, everyone has played a role in this naming. But I want to give you just a little bit of context for why it occurred to me. I grew up in a neighborhood that was bifurcated by freeways. And as I learned about the history of our interstate system, I understood that, while it is one of the most robust economic development tools we have in our country, it's also something that, divided into some cases, eliminated neighborhoods. And as we looked at the history of it, more than two-thirds of the communities that were decimated by the highway's construction were poor and minority communities. And yet, when you go down our freeways across this country, very few African-American names appear on those freeways. And when we think about John Hope Franklin, someone who really carved out African-American history as a discipline and who helped us understand the significance of African-American history in the greater context of our American society, there could be no better person to highlight and to hold up. As an example, not just of someone who was a great intellectual, a great leader, but someone who had something incredibly important to say to us about the future. And at this time, when we see examples of Charlottesville and examples of Ferguson and Baltimore and even Shaw, it's a time for us to begin to reflect on the fact that whether you live in rural North Carolina or urban North Carolina, whether you're white or black, which four Native American, Asian, Latino, we are all here together and we're not going anywhere. So it's with great heart that I sit here and I look forward to hearing from the other speakers. But I just would like to also add that as we commemorate today, we need to support groups like Asala, a group that John H. Franklin started, that is now looking to increase the number of monuments and dedications to African-Americans. We also need to think about women on our highways who are underrepresented. So let this be the beginning of a new effort to recognize all of North Carolina on our byways and highways. Thank you. Please have Congressman G. K. Bodefield from District 1 to please join us. Congressman is so that I can get on a 225 plane this afternoon and to go back and see if we can stop some of these tax cuts that are going to be enacted over the next few weeks. But thank you, Valerie Jordan, for your leadership. Thank you for the great work that you do to the Department of Transportation. To my 30th plus year friend, Governor Roy Cooper, thank you for your leadership, sir. You should know that Governor Cooper has assembled probably the most diverse team in North Carolina history. To the mayor, I guess soon to be former mayor of the city of Durham, Mayor Bill Bell, and to the other state, county, and city officials, Secretary Fox, thank you for your work, ladies and gentlemen. It is my honor to have a very small part in this program today. Not just to honor a great African American, but to honor a great American. A man who did so much, so much for our hearts say that I had a personal friendship or relationship with Dr. John Luke Franklin. That was my loss. I did sit with him on an airplane one day between Roland Durham and Washington National Airport and it seemed like the flight lasted for five minutes because he talked the entire way and we sat together and he told me about the indignities that he experienced in Oklahoma when he was growing up years ago. He told me, Secretary Fox, about how he and his mother were ejected from a train when he was growing up as a child and when he moved to Tulsa, how that same incident repeated itself again. And so we've come today to honor a great American and it's my joy to have a part in the program. One thing about Dr. John Luke Franklin is that he knew what lane to stay in. He knew his strengths and I presume that he knew his weaknesses. He knew that his strength was intellectual. His strength was education. His strength was imparting knowledge to people who are uninformed and so he spent his life in imparting knowledge to America. And so on behalf of the 700,000 plus citizens of the First Congressional District, we want to thank Secretary Fox for his extraordinary leadership in getting this started. And Secretary Fox and I won't speak now when he was Secretary of DOT. We didn't tell a lot of people that but we talked often and I remember him telling me that one day one of his last achievements that he wanted to accomplish was to get this done and he has made it happen. The Governor of North Carolina embraced it. His Department of Transportation embraced it and here we are today. So thank you all of you who have a role to play in this event. Please hand me our city of Durham, William Bale. The Congressional Blood Field. Who are you? Secretary Fox and other distinguished participants on the platform and all of you that are in the audience. It's an honor to welcome you to the city of Durham. And it's always an honor to have an opportunity to be here at H.I. And we hear Secretary Fox talk about the impact that United States and how we have had in communities. So I think it's very fitting that we hold this dedication here at the H.I. Heritage Center. Certainly one of the communities that was impacted by an interstate highway, not an interstate, not 147. And I'm going to first thank Commissioner Wallace who's in the City Manager's Office for pulling the city together in trying to make this happen. I know Commissioner has worked with NCDOT. She's worked with the Franklin family very hard in trying to make this come together. And I want to applaud her for that. I also want to thank Reginald Johnson who's with the CDC Community Development Department in the city. Reggie may not know as chairman of H.I. Heritage Center and certainly working with Angela Bryan to make this facility available for us here today. As you have many speakers that are going to talk to you, I'm sure they're going to share some of their experiences with Dr. John Franklin. And obviously I met Dr. Franklin early on in the 70s when I was first running for the Durham Board of County Commissioners. I met him through a very dear friend of mine who's now deceased, Dr. Jacqueline Johnson who actually worked with one of the faculty at Duke University. And he introduced me to Dr. Franklin in hopes that he might be supported for my campaign for kind of commissions. And he was. But I soon kind of got to know him a little bit better whether he was seeing him at Dillard's where he's eating fish and chicken at Dillard's Barbecue with his friend Dr. Walton Brown. Whether it was at a relay meeting when he was regaling us with some of the stories and tales about the things that had happened during the course of his lifetime. Or whether it was at his home when he was demonstrating off his vast orchid that he had been involved in. So the one thing I can say about him from my experience is that he seemed to be the same no matter where he was. When he was eating in a environment where he was extolling some of the things he was involved in or whether he was just being simply a Donald Franklin man on the street, a man of the people. And finally I want to say to the Franklin family, while we know he was your father, John Franklin, and Karen, your father-in-law and other members of the Franklin family, we are there and consider them to be ours also. So we are honored that you allowed us to be a part of this ceremony, dedicating this highway to here but more importantly, to have been a part of our life here in Durham for that good, forever grateful. Thank you. I also want to say to those of you in the audience I'm not as eloquent as the congressman or the secretary or our mayor so just bear with me because I prepared my comments. So to our state, local and university officials and family and friends of Dr. Franklin I want to say good afternoon. What a great honor for Durham to name an important transportation corridor for a great historian, activist and scholar Dr. John Hope Franklin. Here today I continue to be awed by the fact that Dr. John Hope Franklin maintained a special connection to Durham throughout his historic academic career. I've always known that he taught at North Carolina Century University quite early in his career but more recently I came to understand that he was personally hired by Dr. James E. Shepherd, the founder of that great institution and after building an unmatched scholarly and academic reputation in this country and abroad Dr. John Hope Franklin returned to Durham in 1983 specifically to Duke University where he was appointed the James B. Duke Professor of History and as we know during that time he wrote, lectured and led important projects and initiatives in areas including race, racial reconciliation, ethics, democracy and more. I had the great pleasure of getting to know John Hope Franklin through my membership in Sigma Pi Phi, a national fraternity that has leadership, education and civic responsibility as a part of its core mission. I was honored to regularly hear his reflections on the important milestones of his career and this man who walked with kings was so down to earth, literally he was as comfortable on the national stage as he was in his greenhouse attending his beloved Orchid Collection. We all remember how much he loved Orchids. Truly, John Hope was a Renaissance man in my opinion. As I close, let me offer my thanks to the Department of Transportation and the Board and other officials for making today possible and for helping to keep the name and legacy of Dr. John Hope Franklin in the fabric of Durham for generations to come. Thank you. I think or I would like to invite to the stage is Senator Floyd B. McKesson Jr. He is the Senior Deputy Director and Leader of the North Carolina General Assembly. Good to be here on this podium with so many distinguished guests today. Governor Cooper, thank you for all that you do for our city. Secretary Fox, thank you for initiating this concept and bestowing this unique privilege and honor because it's one that's so well earned and deserved. And thank you, Mayor Bell, for all of the debt taken to service that you have given to Durham. Next Monday night, you'll no longer be our mayor officially, but for all of us who know the leadership that you have provided to member of the county commissioners and as our mayor, going back now to my country, about 2002, I just want to thank you. All of you, for all of you that are here today, thank you for coming out because this is an important significant occasion. It could occur at no more fitting and appropriate place than this very venue. This was the heartbeat in the center and so rightfully so. If you lived through the 50s, if you lived through the 60s, you'd know St. Joseph was the place where all the civil rights leaders came. This podium is where they stood. This podium is where they spoke and I'm not sure if the people would have been busses to go out and desegregate all the facilities in this community. So no more fitting place could this particular ceremony occur. When I think back to John Holt Franklin, I think back when I first met him through my dad. My dad was very active. Many of you know the Civil Rights Movement, but he started a center called the North Carolina Center for the Study of Black History. John Holt Franklin was a member of that board of directors. And one of the things that we actually worked on was a archive of the records of people from here in North Carolina. And that archive was actually kept in the antics of this very building down at the lower level for about seven or eight years until many of those records, including my dad's records, were transferred over to UNC Chapel Hill. It was that very commitment to preserving and understanding black history that John Holt Franklin was about. I can remember meeting with him on many occasions, probably about once a quarter, right over here in this very building, in that antics way we worked on programming, dealing with preparing the next generation for leaders here, mentoring programs that brought students in to North Carolina Central University's campus in the summer months, and exposed those kids for about three weeks to all that they needed to know to understand when it came to politics, to bring in a whole cadre of leaders to expose them to what they could become, but more importantly, to open up their minds to opportunities otherwise they would never have. That's what John Holt Franklin was about. That's part of that legacy that many people don't even know about. But it's part of the legacy that is very much a part of what he was involved in. I think back to the times when I met with him outside of those meetings right here in St. Joseph, but over in a home of a gentleman by the name of Dr. Darrell LeMont Roberts. So you might remember Dr. Roberts. He was a professor over at Duke University for quite some time before he went on to Tuskegee where he headed up the political science department, but had it not been, had it not been for John Holt Franklin, Dr. Roberts would have never come to Durham. Had it not been for John Holt Franklin's Skipper Gates would have never come to Durham and worked over at Duke before going on to Harvard, he brought that quality of tech to our community, that type of inspired leadership. If I think back to those times of sitting at Dr. Roberts' home and the knowledge that you could just gain from sitting there talking for hours with the three of them, it was enormous. But Dr. Franklin was somebody who was fitting and appropriate for the time. He was intelligent. He was persuasive. He was direct. But most importantly, you know where he stood at the end of the conversation. But he could use that gentleness of persuasion, that gentleness of influence to make a remarkable and impressionable point whatever it may happen to be. Somebody had opened up doors. He was so good and so crafted at that skill set that President Clinton appointed him to take charge of the commission with dealing with racial reconciliation in America. And if there's ever a time where we need it to bring Dr. Franklin back today to do a reconciliation, it is now. At least right now we could really use that skill set with what's going on in our country and the divisiveness that has re-emerged within the last year or so because it's now open to do so because it gets the blessings to the very top within our country. Dr. Franklin, wherever you may be today if you could get enlightened souls to harvest the imagination of those of us that are here to inspire us to carry on your legacy. But more importantly to build upon those values that were intrinsic within you to help us to carry on that mission that you started you blazed the pathway you charted the course we only need to follow. Thank you for all you did this brawner and recognition of this highway is fitting, it's appropriate, it's well overdue but more importantly it's along the pathways and they see that name and they may not know it maybe they'll go back and study it maybe they'll understand his contributions but more importantly maybe each and every one of us can help continue that legacy whatever small way we can. Thank you. Thank you Senator. Now I would like to invite Dr. Everett B. Moore he's the general president of St. Augustine course to our Governor Governor Cooper into Mayor Bell and to Secretary Fox and all a symbol on the day good afternoon to the audience good afternoon. On behalf of St. Augustine's University it is indeed an honor to be here with you today as we commemorate the legacy of a great mentor and friend Dr. John Hope Franklin. Dr. Franklin served St. Augustine's with a noble distinction as a professor of history nearly 70 years ago during that critical period in American history Dr. Franklin motivated his students and his colleagues to excel beyond traditional limitations after learning of his doctoral requirements and the subsequent awarding of the PhD degree from Harvard University Dr. Franklin was advised by then St. Augustine's University President Edgar Gould to guard his professional actions towards colleagues that have limited educational attainment. However, very fortunately for all of us Dr. Franklin was driven internally by his own words Dr. Franklin once stated and I quote if the house is to be set in order one cannot begin with the present he must begin with the past Dr. Franklin dedicated his life to beginning with the past to ensure that American history reflected the enormous contributions of African-American citizens. Today as the 11th president of St. Augustine's University celebrating the 150th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine's University, I know firsthand as a former student of St. Augustine's the benefit of Dr. Franklin's intellectual resolve. One of my most cherished treasures is my fifth edition John from Slavery to Freedom a history of Negro Americans I use this as a student at St. Augustine's University and here we are 70 years later after the first publication dated September the 22nd 1947 St. Augustine's University students are today using the book from Slavery to Freedom that deserves a round of applause and I was in a history class just two weeks ago talking with students and a professor it was John Hope Franklin's from Slavery to Freedom book that they were using his resolve and his determination is what we celebrate today and I can say without a doubt his publication The Free Negro of North Carolina has a direct benefit to me because it was in that publication that he recognized my great-great-grandfather so for this president John Hope Franklin was a mentor and indeed a great brother and his has already been said his genuine commitment to a new generation and as the 35th general president of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity I can tell you the countless days that we would be together at conventions and he would always find time to mentor the young Alphas as we prepare our way and I close with the true story of John Hope Franklin at one of our general conventions we honored John Hope and he brought his books and we were there to sign books he signed autographed books for us and I had my first edition of From Slavery to Freedom 1947 that my great-uncle passed on to meet John and your father said can I buy that book from you and I said Dr. Franklin I love you as a brother but you cannot have my book Say Powell, the Dean of Humanities and John Spencer Bassett Professor of Art and Art History at Duke University Dr. Powell The social significance and symbolism of the highway for African Americans did not evade Professor John Hope Franklin's scholarly purview from his pioneering research on the extreme chances enslaved women and men took as they embarked down southern U.S. roadways to escape slavery and liberate themselves to his careful documentation of the pivotal role highway transportation played in the mid 20th century struggle African Americans experienced for public accommodations Professor John Hope Franklin was keenly aware of the American highway as a site of contestation and liberatory possibilities for black Americans for Professor Franklin the road was not a hallucinatory Jack Kerouac beat generation metaphor for freedom it was the African Americans conduit to a new life to reestablish bonds of affection to economic prosperity and to finding a way out of no way and yet Professor Franklin would have also appreciated the poets of roads freeways and interstate routes especially in the narratives and musical expressions of black folk while teaching at St. Augustine's College from 1939 to 1943 and from 1943 to 1947 teaching at North Carolina Central University Professor Franklin would have traversed the roads and highways between Raleigh Durham and Goldsboro the latter his wife Aurelia Whittington Franklin's hometown the witnessed firsthand the new and decrepit automobiles the overloaded trucks the Jim Crow buses and the mule and horse and oxen drawn wagons carrying people in produce throughout North Carolina's Piedmont region toiling away in the segregated section of the North Carolina State Archives in the late 1930s and early 1940s Professor Franklin might have paused while conducting research for the free Negro in North Carolina to listen to one of the many itinerant blues musicians playing on Raleigh's street corners in those years one of the frequently performed songs keys to the highway perfectly captured African-American feelings concerning the accessibility and openness that major roadways their affairs offered I got the key to the highway build out and bound to go I'm going to leave here running because walking is too much slow when the moon creeps over the mountain honey I'll be on my way I'm going to walk this highway until the break of day well so long, so long baby I must say goodbye I'm going to roam this highway until the day I die literally blocks away from Durham's tobacco warehouses and cotton mills where these blues musicians also practiced their characteristic art form Professor John Paul Franklin ensconced in his North Carolina Central University offices in the mid 1940s could not have avoided the harmonic strands of a Piedmont blues soundtrack while completing his canonical from slavery to freedom who could have imagined in 1947 the year Professor Franklin completed his African-American Chronicle that 70 years later we return to the neighborhood of that book's genesis to celebrate the renaming of a section of Interstate 85 in his honor on behalf of my Duke University colleagues the students at Duke and North Carolina Central Universities as well as the greater research and the single academic community I applaud the state of North Carolina for recognizing, via this tribute Professor John Paul Franklin's amazing important contributions to our state to our country and to humanity at large, thank you Gail Faulkner Hudson who's the executive director of the Durham Literacy Center the executive director of the Durham Literacy Center who was sick this morning and she's even sicker that she can't be here because she really wanted to and was so inspired by Dr. Franklin I also want to thank Mayor Bale for allowing us as the Durham Literacy Center to be represented today because it's very important to us to honor Dr. Franklin because he's so honored us I'm wearing this tiny little orchid today and I want to say that you mentioned that because he did, although he walked with giants and kings, he was a gentle giant and as he grew his orchids, it took such a tender touch which one time on the board he compared that to literacy that it takes a giant of knowledge and of patience to teach someone to be literate but it also takes a tender touch to take that individual and love and care about that individual and he indeed did that on a personal level I'm a North Carolinian and I've been in Durham since I was a tiny little kid and my father was given bestowed the Order of the Longleaf Pine and I had heard about it but I didn't think too much about it and I just thought he was given that for his work in equal rights and civil rights and then one day when I found out that Dr. Franklin had been given the Order of the Longleaf Pine it suddenly became very, very important and I thought about my father and how my father was honored to be in some way at the table with a giant like Dr. Franklin and how wonderful that they shared this honor and in many ways I hope today that although very different in race one white, one black they're together somewhere and talking about what they had in common with their dream, their intent and their spirit Dr. Franklin was so good to the Durham Literacy Center he believed in literacy he served on our board until he passed and he shared with us such support in his community thoughts, his involvement and he made this speech, it was a commencement speech at Duke and it so beautifully stated about a story in his life pertaining to literacy that I would love to read it to you right now Dr. Franklin said one of the most rewarding experiences you can possibly have is to guide a child or an adult to learn to read and write I had that experience when I was 20 years old it was during my first year as a graduate student one evening during my first month in Cambridge a man, twice my age wrapped at my door softly and I invited him in he said he needed help in making out a letter he said that he couldn't read it because the handwriting was so poor and could I please read the letter to him well, when I took the letter to do that I saw it was very well written, easily understandable and I wondered who had been helping him to read when I completed the task of reading the letter to my visitor I suggested that it would be good if he and I could work together and brush up on his reading he protested and he said oh you'll have the time to mess with me I told him I would take the time if he would come to my room at 5 o'clock each night for the next 8 months well he did and we worked together 6 days a week and by the end of the term I knew nothing about English I who knew nothing about teaching English had transformed a person from literacy, from illiteracy to one who could read and write simple sentences 2 days before I received my master of arts degree my student for the first time in his whole life wrote a letter to his family in Virginia during that week I graduated I read a letter from this man, this older man who had written a letter to me it was this experience more than any other that inspired me to dedicate myself to the educational enterprise this story is amazing but it's not surprising Dr. Franklin was such a remarkable man to take the time to teach, to work with this individual and change this individual's life as he brought literacy into his life we are so excited to think that a portion of our highway will represent Dr. Franklin and will remind those who travel there of our community and our society and how it has been touched by his grace, his kindness and his concern here is one last quote shared with us one night on the board and this is what he said I think that literacy is a fundamental characteristic of any society if you are not literate you cannot function effectively and successfully in our society or any society thank you so much for letting me share from the highway I do want to acknowledge one of our distinguished guests Dr. Atkin Levy would please stand he is our chancellor from North Carolina and keynote speaker and to him, to me, he's my governor, he's your governor he's the governor of this great state of North Carolina would please stand everyone and give a round of applause for our governor thank you to the family of Dr. Franklin honoring us with your presence Secretary Fox, thank you and Valerie and the team of the Department of Transportation Secretary Jim Trocken we have David Howard and Al Kossman and Michael Fox thank you for doing this I'm grateful for this great Durham legislative delegation that you sent to work with me in Raleigh the dean of your delegation, Niki Michaud who is here along with representatives Marsha Mori and Representative Mary Ann Black Senator McKissick and Senator Mike Woodard thank you for what you do and I want to thank you for inviting me to honor this man who has done so much to improve our state and a man who has really laid the groundwork for the mission that I have for our state that mission is at the end of my term as governor I want to know with Carolina whether people are better educated whether they're healthier whether they have more money in their pockets and they have the opportunities to live a more abundant and purposeful life that's what I want that's my mission state and I want to before I say a few words about Dr. Franklin in this dedication I do want to thank someone who has worked tirelessly for this city and our state the mayor for the last 16 years on the board of Carolina commissioners he's guided during a remarkable period where it has become a center for education medicine technology arts and culture and more I know it's been done before but I want you to join me in thanking Mayor Bill Bell to see so many people gathered today for this highway dedication there are some truly great leaders not only on this stage but out in the audience and most all of them would tell you that in some way Dr. John Franklin has had an effect on their lives whether through knowing him or through his writings a lifetime dedicated to the betterment of others takes true passion selflessness determination it's really rare to come across an individual so willing to give of themselves over to that kind of service and even more rare to have that kind of service performed by someone with such skill talent in great intellectual capacity it's that kind of person that we honor today with this highway dedication Dr. John Hope Franklin I think as a result of the work of Dr. Franklin the America that we live in today is a different place from the one into which he was born in 1915 growing up in the Jim Crow South Dr. Franklin saw his first hand and felt personally the horrors of racism as a young child he saw Tulsa Oklahoma's Black Neighborhood's burn in the 1921 Tulsa riots and he saw people killed as he grew up and became a student of history he saw how racism throughout history affects how we think today Dr. Franklin spent his life showing us that we must not look away from these ugly truths that we should remember them with un-fledging honesty and confront them head on that we should learn from them Dr. Franklin elevated the experiences of black Americans into the fabric of our American society he worked tirelessly to turn them into real change and he did Dr. Franklin knew the difference between history and advocacy as a scholar he kept them separate but he also knew that the knowledge of history could be the catalyst for advocacy in other words he knew that education inspires change in 1954 Dr. Franklin helped Thurgood Marshall's team of lawyers form an argument that the racist history of our country was essential to Jim Crow laws leading to the Brown versus Board of Education decision that began creating our schools and throughout his career and with his writings Dr. Franklin defined the historical background of the civil rights movement illuminating a path forward toward a brighter future for millions of Americans he worked personally with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders he consulted with presidents and numerous honors including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and over a hundred honorary degrees Durham and the entire state of North Carolina were blessed to become Dr. Franklin's home later in life Dr. Franklin taught lead and broke barriers as an academic at Harvard and the University of Chicago and at other academic institutions around the world Dr. Franklin was extremely proud of the work that he did right here at St. Augustine's at North Carolina Central University and at Duke University here in Durham His work forging an unbreakable bond between history and advocacy has helped change the fight against racism Dr. Franklin knew that the wide gap between the promise of American freedom and the reality faced by so many couldn't be bridged by history alone he knew advocates and policy makers had to use that knowledge of history in the right ways and he wielded history as a tool to as he put it present the case for change in keeping with the express purpose of attaining the promise goals of equality for all people Dr. Franklin taught us that only through better understanding of the past can we hope to create the change we wish to see today and tomorrow we can't forget that lesson and with the divided world that we live in today generations are as valuable and maybe even more valuable than they ever were today we dedicate this highway to Dr. Franklin to honor the life he lived and to remind ourselves and future generations of the value of our whole history the history of all of us and as we ride by and we see this road sign I hope I hope you will pause and think about the history that we ourselves we ourselves are making right now and that we need to do it right we must work diligently to learn from our past both the good and the bad the unsanitized and the unvarnished and we must turn what we learn into positive actions actions that work to assure of North Carolina that as Dr. John H. Franklin would have wanted of North Carolina that works for everyone thank you very much thank you so much Governor Cooper thank you for the day who will begin with our closing remarks is Dr. Franklin's son John W. Franklin don't you please join us in and I'd like to thank all of those involved in making this possible but first I must thank Secretary Fox for helping create another sign in Washington actually when I first met Secretary I said to him we have hidden history here in Washington DC which was a seat and center of the domestic slave trade and there's no signage in the city to tell our visitors our employees about that history and you control land as Secretary of Transportation we're two slave pens sat in Washington across from the Smithsonian Castle I gave him the evidence and then we wrote, designed, fabricated and had those signs installed right on Independence Avenue I thank you for that the Secretary unveiled those signs as I was speaking across the street for former Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Martin Luther King's Holiday my maternal grandmother Bertha Kincaid and her sister Ethel first arrived in the I-85 corridor at the turn of the last century as daughters of Bishop A.M.E. Zion Bishop Kincaid when they arrived at Livingston College Grand Pop Samuel W. Wittington I'm John Wittington friend from Buford was a postal clerk in the railroad in Goldsboro and married my grandmother in 1931 my parents met at Fisk Aurelia from Goldsboro and John Hope from Tulsa John Hope Franklin first came to Raleigh in 1937 to do research at the State Archives on the Free Negro in North Carolina before the Civil War but you see when he arrived there and some of you've heard this story up before so forgive me when he arrived at the State Archives from Cambridge Massachusetts they said we're not ready to receive you they had not had African American researchers in the State Archives and they said can you come back in a week my father said no no no I'm a graduate student I have to do my work as soon as possible so he returned and my father always said that segregation was adaptive and flexible three days later he arrived and they showed him to his private office with a table a desk a chair a waste basket a pencil, a cart and a key to the stacks because they were not going to have white staff fetching materials for an African American gentleman so he was very happy he took his cart rolled it through the reading room all the white researchers stopped them and looked at what was happening here he got to the door to the stacks put his key in turned it, rolled his car in came out a little later with a cart stacked of materials that he needed to do his research when he returned the next day of course the white researchers had requested keys to the stacks claiming that my father had unfair invent so my parents married in Goldsboro in 1940 while dad was teaching at Saint Augustine's then at North Carolina Central and my mother was the law librarian here at North Carolina Central dad also left occasion to teach at Bennett so he's going up and down what was to become the I-85 corridor living just blocks from here off the Fayetteville he wrote From Slavery to Freedom and Miles Mark Fisher would go to sleep hearing his father typing the Negro slave songs book and my father echoing him typing the next set of From Slavery to Freedom I appeared on the scene in 1952 while dad was teaching at Howard and my mother was a librarian at Prince George's College when we would leave Washington DC for Goldsboro I knew that when I saw the statue of Iwo Jima it meant no more bathrooms no more restaurants until we got to our friend Bob and Ella Clark's home at Virginia State in Petersburg at the North Carolina border a sign said Ku Klux Klan welcomes you to North Carolina now this is when we were going on highway 301 301 was stop and go traffic with stop lights stop lights so I want you to understand that coming here was a slow process there were no industries then we would stop in Petersburg and see the Clarks it would be to see Miss Alice Jones for the next respite break in Raleigh and then to 306 James Street it was a real relief when Highway 70 was built and when the interstate system you know about the problems but when I-40 and I-85 were built it made travel so much easier for all of us even though it changed the landscape of North Carolina now my parents moved to Chicago moved to New York, Chicago and then the winter of Chicago the winter of Chicago was scared that right back to North Carolina and when my parents moved the orchids moved my grandmother here back to Durham I thought I remembered a story a conversation he had with a professor when he was teaching here in the 40s he was in one of the libraries and ran into a white professor who said to Dad I just said you're against segregation my father said oh I'm most deaf my father was then told he said well if segregation ends you'll be out of the job because the college schools are closed my father said quite to the contrary when segregation ends your job will be up for granted so he accepted Duke's offer to teach at the history department and later in the law school and here my mother loved being here loved Durham loved the institutions and the city and I thank you all for honoring him today can we give him another round of applause before we unveil the sign I'd like to thank you all again for being here today as we recognize the tremendous contributions of Dr. Franklin I'd also like to thank everyone who helped make this event possible now as we're going to do is we're going to conclude today's ceremony but before we conclude if Mayor Howard Lee could you please stand and he is the former mayor of Chicago so we're going to conclude today's ceremony with the reading of the resolution of the highway sign that will be placed on the portion of Interstate 85 U.S. 70 bypass and again it will be known as the Dr. John H. Franklin highway so I am going to read the resolution and that we pass with North Carolina Board of NC DOT it states whereas Dr. John Hope Franklin was born on January 2nd 1915 to attorney Bruce Charles Colbert Franklin and Molly Parker Franklin in Oklahoma and whereas Dr. Franklin graduated from Rooker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma and then from Frisk University a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee in 1955 Dr. Franklin earned a master's degree in 1936 and a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University and whereas Dr. Franklin's career includes working alongside Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund that led to the United States Supreme Court brewing in 1954 that the legal separation of black and white children in public schools were unconstitutional leading to integration of schools and whereas Dr. Franklin's teaching career began at Fisk University and he went on to teach at St. Augustine's College the North Carolina College for Negroes now a North Carolina Central University Howard University Brooklyn College University of Chicago and the University of Cambridge and whereas Dr. Franklin was appointed as the James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke University in 1983 in 1985 he took status from his position during that same time he helped to establish the Durham Literacy Center and serve on its board until 2009 Dr. Franklin was also a professor of legal history at Duke University's Law School from 1985 to 1992 and whereas Dr. Franklin was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity the Organization of American Historians the American Historical Association and the Southern Historical Association and whereas the John Cook Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture resides at Duke University's this is also a part of their manuscript library and contains his personal and professional papers the other academic unit named after Dr. Franklin at Duke University of the John Cook Franklin Center for International Studies and the Franklin Humanities Institute and whereas Dr. Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom the nation's highest civilian honor and the Order of the Lonely Pine the state's highest honor awarded to persons for his exemplary service to the state of North Carolina and the local community and whereas former United States Secretary Anthony R. Fox requested that this destination of the Dr. John Cook Franklin Highway and whereas the city of the Durham City Council requested to designate a portion of Interstate 85 from Coal Mill Road to U.S. 70 Biopass as the Dr. John Cook Franklin Highway now therefore be it resolved that the North Carolina Board of Transportation names a portion of Interstate 85 from Coal Mill Road to U.S. 70 Biopass as the John H. Franklin Highway this appropriate signs will be erected at a suitable time well not so suitable but because we're about to actually do that so Joey is our division engineer by the way and he's going to help us with that so Joey I need your help so with that being said well Dr. Franklin's family Governor Cooper, Mayor Bill Bell and all of our guest speakers join me as we unveil the sign well it seems to me when everyone gets to Durham is go slowly we're going to have if you're able it's not a hardship would you please stand we go now oh lord inspired by the life and legacy of John Cook Franklin and as we travel up and down this highway named for him this beloved son may we be reminded that as we come we all have a history but as we go may we be reminded that we need not be constrained by it let us go like our son did live learn and share