Franklin, John Hope (1915- )

US historian. An academic, he taught at various colleges and became the first black American president of the American Historical Association. His publications include Reconstruction after the Civil War (1961), The Emancipation Proclamation (1963), and Racial Equality in America (1976).

He was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, took his BA from Fisk University and did his graduate work at Harvard. He taught at colleges in North Carolina, and then in 1947 - the same year he published his pathbreaking study, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of American Negroes - he joined the faculty of Howard University. He then became chairman of the history department of Brooklyn College (1956-64), professor at the University of Chicago (1964-82), and professor at Duke University (1982-85). As black American history finally became recognized as a serious discipline for study, he became one of its most highly respected scholars.