The sage of freedom: An interview with John Hope Franklin

John Hope Franklin, one of the world's most distinguished and influential historians, has been a strong advocate and avid practitioner of public history since the late 1940s. Augmenting and extending his work as a pioneer in the fields of African-American and Southern history, he has been involved in a broad spectrum of public history projects, ranging from his international activities with the Fulbright Commission to his work with Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund in conducting research that helped bring about the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision. More recently, during the late 1990s he chaired President Bill Clinton's National Advisory Board on Race, convening a series of high-profile hearings in various parts of the nation. Today, at age 92, he still maintains an exhausting schedule of public addresses related to history, freedom, and democracy.