John Hope Franklin Given Top Honor By UC Berkeley's Academic Senate

DURHAM, N.C. - For his long career as a teacher, intellectual and civil rights advocate, historian John Hope Franklin was honored Saturday with the Clark Kerr Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Academic Senate of the University of California, Berkeley.

Franklin, a Duke University professor emeritus, was given the medal by UC Berkeley Professor Harry Scheiber in a ceremony at the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies in Durham.

"John Hope Franklin is one of the great figures in the study of American history in the United States for the last half century," said Scheiber, a professor of history and law and former chair of the UC Berkeley Academic Senate. "He has been the leading figure in the field of African-American history, American race relations and Southern regional history in the United States."

The award was created in 1968 by members of the Berkeley Academic Senate to honor Berkeley President Emeritus Clark Kerr. It is presented to recognize individuals for their contributions to higher education. Past winners include Justice Earl Warren and J. William Fulbright. "I am deeply honored to receive the Clark Kerr Award," said Franklin, whose teaching career began at Fisk University in 1936. "Dr. Kerr is one of the most highly respected educators in the country. It is a pleasure to be in the company of other recipients of the Clark Kerr award."

Franklin's best-known book, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans, is considered one of the definitive works on the black experience. The 1947 book is in its eighth edition. He has published numerous other books, including The Emancipation Proclamation, The Militant South, The Free Negro in North Carolina and A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North. He also has edited many works, including a book about his father called My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin, with his son, John Whittington Franklin. The 87-year-old Franklin is currently writing his autobiography.

Franklin was born in Oklahoma and was educated at Fisk and Harvard University, where he earned a Ph.D. He has taught at Fisk, Brooklyn College and the University of Chicago as well as at Duke. In 1982, he was named James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke and was elected professor emeritus in 1985. From 1985 to 1992, he was professor of legal history in the Duke Law School.

In 1997, he was appointed chairman of the advisory board for President Clinton's "One America: The President's Initiative on Race." He has received many dozens of other honors and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995. Last month, he was awarded the Gold Medal in History by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He has served as president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the American Studies Association, the Southern Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association.

In 2001, Duke University opened the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, which is dedicated to bringing together humanists and social scientists to study important societal issues from a variety of perspectives.

Note to editors: A jpeg image of John Hope Franklin receiving the Clark Kerr Award is available here.