John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin
Born	(1915-01-02)January 2, 1915 Rentiesville, Oklahoma, United States
Died	March 25, 2009(2009-03-25) (aged 94) Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, United States
Alma mater	Fisk University (B.A., 1935); Harvard University (M.A., 1936; Ph.D., 1941)
Occupation(s)	Scholar, historian, author, professor
Spouse	Aurelia Whittington Franklin (m. 1940; d. 1999)
Children	John Whittington Franklin
Honors	John W. Kluge Prize in the Human Sciences (2006) 100 Greatest African Americans (2002) Presidential Medal of Freedom (1995) Manly Distinguished Service Professor, at the University of Chicago (1969) James B. Duke Professor of History at Duke (1983) Jefferson Lecturer (1976)

John Hope Franklin (January 2, 1915 – March 25, 2009) was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Born in Oklahoma, Franklin attended Fisk University and then Harvard University, receiving his doctorate in 1941. He was a professor at Howard University, and in 1956 was named to head the history department at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York. Recruited to the University of Chicago in 1964, he eventually led the history department and was appointed to a named chair. He then moved to Duke University in 1983, as an appointee to a named chair in history.