US historian John Hope Franklin dies at 94
The US historian John Hope Franklin, a pioneering scholar of black American history, has died at the age of 94.
His 1947 book From Slavery to Freedom is regarded as a landmark volume of black American history, and remains on US school syllabuses.
Mr Franklin, born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma, helped in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case against racial segregation.
He was also the first black president of the American Historical Association.
Franklin was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College as well as the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University.
His book delved into the important contribution African-Americans had made to the nation right back to its very founding - he pointed out that black patriots had fought in the War of Independence and had accompanied George Washington on his march across the Delaware.
Often exasperated by the state of America, he refused to give up on the country.
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His 1947 book From Slavery to Freedom is regarded as a landmark volume of black American history, and remains on US school syllabuses.
Mr Franklin, born and raised in an all-black community in Oklahoma, helped in the 1954 Brown vs Board of Education case against racial segregation.
He was also the first black president of the American Historical Association.
Franklin was the first black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College as well as the first black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University.
His book delved into the important contribution African-Americans had made to the nation right back to its very founding - he pointed out that black patriots had fought in the War of Independence and had accompanied George Washington on his march across the Delaware.
Often exasperated by the state of America, he refused to give up on the country.