HBCU Money™ Business Book Feature – The Autobiography of an African American Lawyer in Early Oklahoma

Historian Franklin (chair of Bill Clinton’s Initiative of Race and Reconciliation advisory board and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom) has edited and assembled the autobiography of his late father, Buck Colbert Franklin (1879-1960), who “represented many layers of the human experience?freedman and Native American, farmer and rancher, rural educator and urban professional.” The elder Franklin meticulously reports the daily observances from his youth in the Indian Territory to his practice of law in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The kaleidoscope of approaches and life experiences reflect the many changes, cultural and political, that the indomitable Franklin witnessed throughout his lifetime. Buck Franklin’s ability to understand the complex and appreciate the simple aspects of existence mesmerizes the reader and brings the realities of slavery, poverty, and racial tensions to us in a firsthand account. The anecdotal details in another’s hand might become tiresome, but Franklin’s account holds one’s attention and strongly communicates the honor and stalwartness of his family. For public and academic libraries.?Kay Meredith Dusheck, Animosa, Iowa
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

John Hope Franklin is the fourth child of Buck and Mollie Parker Franklin. The recipient of over one hundred honorary degrees, he is the author of From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans and Race and History: Selected Essays, 1938–1988, among other works. Franklin is James B. Duke Professor of History Emeritus at Duke University.

John Whittington Franklin is the son of John Hope Franklin. He is a program manager for the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution.