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    Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
    Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
    Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin

    Written by John Hope Franklin

    Narrated by John Hope Franklin

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Ninety years of American history as lived by the nation's preeminent African American historian and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
    John Hope Franklin lived through America's most defining twentieth-century transformation, the dismantling of legally-protected racial segregation. A renowned scholar, he has explored that transformation in its myriad aspects, notably in his 3.5 million-copy bestseller, From Slavery to Freedom. And he was, and remains, an active participant.
    Born in 1915, he, like every other African American, could not but participate: he was evicted from whites-only train cars, confined to segregated schools, threatened–once with lynching–and consistently met with racism's denigration of his humanity. And yet he managed to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard, become the first black historian to assume a full-professorship at a white institution, Brooklyn College, be appointed chair of the University of Chicago's history department, and, later, John B. Duke Professor at Duke University. He has reshaped the way African American history is understood and taught and become one of the world's most celebrated historians, garnering over 130 honorary degrees. But Franklin's participation was much more fundamental than that.

    From his effort in 1934 to hand President Franklin Roosevelt a petition calling for action in response to the Cordie Cheek lynching, to his 1997 appointment by President Clinton to head the President's Initiative on Race, and continuing to the present, Franklin has influenced with determination and dignity the nation's racial conscience. Whether aiding Thurgood Marshall's preparation for arguing Brown v. Board in 1954, marching to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965, or testifying against Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, Franklin has pushed the national conversation on race towards humanity and equality, a life-long effort that earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 1995.
    Intimate, at times revelatory, Mirror to America chronicles Franklin's life and this nation's racial transformation in the 20th century, and is a powerful reminder of the extent to which the problem of America remains the problem of color.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateNov 15, 2005
    ISBN9781593978204
    Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
    Author

    John Hope Franklin

    John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) was James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke University. His many books include Racial Equality in America and From Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans.

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    Reviews for Mirror to America

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    • 4/5
      I am pleased I encountered this book in audio form, because if I had read it with my eyeballs, I think I would have found it tediously repetitive. Throughout the book, Franklin is constantly rendered "speechless" by yet another accolade, and always accepting prestigious posts "with pleasure". Yet, when you hear him relate the highlights of his life in his own voice, filled with such pride and pleasure, you just want to smile. You feel like you are sitting with him in his study while he goes through boxes filled with evidence of a long life well-lived. This is clearly the autobiography written by someone who is 90 years old, not 70, not 60 . . . it seems to me that the longer you live, if you are lucky enough to be healthy, the more you focus on the upside.So yes, there is a lack of analysis and insight. Sometimes I wonder if Franklin doesn't even remember all the details, and is relying on the items saved in the boxes to jog his memory. When he says an event was followed by a black tie dinner, and that he and his wife were delighted to attend -- is he just referring to the invitation he found in the box? We don't hear anything else about the dinner and wonder why he found it worth mentioning.In another example of a story partially told, Franklin relates a detailed description of how he was recruited to be chair of the Department of History at Brooklyn College, and then you hear nothing more about Brooklyn College until he is recruited to leave there for the University of Chicago. I thought perhaps he had stayed at Brooklyn only a few months, until I looked on Wikipedia and saw he was there 8 years. The actual work he did there does not even merit a paragraph in the autobiography: All you hear is that one of the upsides to the move to Chicago was relief from administrative duties in Brooklyn. What classes did he teach? How did students respond? What did he learn about teaching, how was Brooklyn different from other schools, how was history taught at that time? You get the feeling that over the course of his lifetime he spent an enormous amount of time teaching and preparing for classes, but he says almost nothing about it.You do get to learn a little bit more about Franklin's research topics, but not much about his research process, and a little bit about his travels, but not much about what impact those travels had on him. How did he change over his lifetime? What did he learn? What did he regret? How did the profession of historian change? None of these questions are answered. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book, especially in audio form, for the introduction it provides to this highly accomplished historian. Perhaps it's too bad he didn't write his autobiography when he was younger and sharper, but that would have taken time away from his many, many other worthwhile projects: The audiobook's highlights are when Franklin reads from his own works. I've just ordered Racial Equality in America (Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, 1976). Franklin read from these lectures in the audiobook, but they were written in his prime, and perhaps they will give me a better idea of the work for which he earned all the accolades.But I don't mean to give the impression that I learned nothing from this book: Franklin provided quite a lot of context for understanding his life. I was particularly intrigued by his disdain for the way the national press covered his work as chair for President Clinton's national panel on race. Franklin said when there was no controversy, the press treated the panel as if they were doing nothing; and when there was controversy, the press treated the panel as if they were failing. When he reads this portion of the book, he does not hide his frustration and anger over the obstacles the press placed in the way of success. And he treats as laughable their assertion that the work of the panel was doomed by the Lewinsky scandal and by Franklin's own failings. As if, he says, America's disdain for addressing race wasn't explanation enough.
    • 4/5
      One of America's greatest and most influential historians tells the story of his fascinating life and work.