John Hope Franklin - Honors

Honors

In 1991, Franklin's students honored him with a festschrift The Facts of Reconstruction: Essays in Honor of John Hope Franklin (edited by Eric Anderson & Alfred A. Moss, Jr. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, c1991).

Franklin served as president of the American Historical Association (1979), the American Studies Association (1967), the Southern Historical Association (1970), and the Organization of American Historians (1975). He was a member of the board of trustees at Fisk University, the Chicago Public Library, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.

Frankin was elected as a foundation member of Fisk's new chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1953, when Fisk became the first historically black college to have a chapter of the honor society. In 1973-76, he served as President of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa.

Additionally, Franklin was appointed to serve on national commissions, including the National Council on the Humanities, the President's Advisory Commission on Ambassadorial Appointments, and One America: The President's Initiative on Race.

Franklin was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. He was an early beneficiary of the fraternity's Foundation Publishers, which provides financial support and fellowship for writers addressing African-American issues.

In 1962 honored as an outstanding historian, Franklin became the first black member of the exclusive Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture resides at the Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library and contains his personal and professional papers. The archive is one of three academic units named after Franklin at Duke. The others are the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, which opened in February 2001 and the Franklin Humanities Institute. Franklin had previously rejected Duke's offer to name a center for African-American Studies after him, saying that he was a historian of America and the world, too.

In 1978, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.

In 1994, the Society of American Historians (founded by Allan Nevins and other historians to encourage literary distinction in the writing of history) awarded Franklin its Bruce Catton Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

In 1995, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

In 1995, Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

In 1997, Franklin was selected to receive the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, a career literary award given annually by the Tulsa Library Trust. Franklin was the first (and so far only) native Oklahoman to receive the award. During his visit to Tulsa to accept the award, Franklin made several appearances to speak about his childhood experiences with racial segregation, as well as his father's experiences as a lawyer in the aftermath of the 1921 Tulsa race riot.

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Franklin on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry presented the Governor’s Arts Award to Dr. Franklin in 2004.

On May 20, 2006, Franklin was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters at Lafayette College's 171st Commencement Exercises.

On November 15, 2006, John Hope Franklin was announced as the third recipient of the John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanity. He shared the prize with Yu Ying-shih.