John Hope Franklin (1915 - 2009) was a distinguished American historian. Author of more than dozen books, he is best known for his definitive history of the African American experience, From Slavery to Freedom. He was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma, the son of an attorney and a schoolteacher. He earned his undergraduate degree at Fisk University in Nashville, where he found a mentor in Professor Theodore Currier, who provided a generous loan to pursue his doctorate at Harvard, a story...