Mirror to America

Inside the House Chamber of the Texas State Capitol, Professor Franklin talked about his book Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. John Hope Franklin was born in 1915. Despite many childhood encounters with racism and segregation, Mr. Franklin received a Ph.D. from Harvard and became the first black historian to become a full professor at a white institution, Brooklyn College. Professor Franklin also taught at the University of Chicago and Duke University. His autobiography recounts the story of his lifelong efforts on behalf of civil rights, including petitioning President Franklin Roosevelt to respond to the Cordie Cheek lynching in 1934, helping Thurgood Marshall prepare to argue Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, and marching to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965. He spoke about his life experiences and how a white professor helped determine his profession as well as about the Civil Rights movement and discrimination in close