By John Whittington Franklin

The following are excerpts from the remarks John Whittington Franklin made about his father, John Hope Franklin, and his mother, Aurelia Whittington Franklin, at the June 11 celebration of their lives at Duke University.

John Hope and Aurelia were extraordinary people, a marvelous couple and a powerful team. I benefited from having them as parents. My mother taught me how to observe everything around me, how to be independent, and develop my own style. She taught me the teamwork that cooking together requires. My father corrected my papers and grammar. (laughter) …

John, John Jr. and Aurelia

My father and I fished together in Prospect Park, Brooklyn; at Topseil (Beach, North Carolina); in Durham’s lakes; in Goldsboro (North Carolina), where I recited my multiplication tables; for salmon off Angel Island in San Francisco Bay; for trout on the Madison River; and in Durham’s ponds for bass. His advice was invaluable. Editing my grandfather’s autobiography with him [Editor's note: My Life and an Era: The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin] was a particular joy. …

My parents created a peaceful home environment that encouraged generosity, kindness, learning, civic engagement and public service. They moved between the black and white worlds of our nation with relative ease. As a family, we received and entertained visitors from around the world. Conversation was an art and one needed to be well-informed on current events and ready to voice’s one’s opinions. …

My parents explained the complexity of American society to me and oriented me to the many places in which we had lived. I saw them challenge segregation and discrimination in New York City as well as in the South. Visiting different U.S. communities, my parents showed me the range of the African-American experience in our nation. I was therefore prepared to value and assess the experiences of people of African descent in Europe and the Caribbean, which became the basis of my own career. They encouraged and enabled me to become fluent in French. My father’s visit to Nigeria and Tanzania for their independence celebrations brought a different African reality to our home. My mother commented that she never imagined that the people of each country would be so different. …

My parents were also model caregivers -my mother caring for her mother, Bertha Kincaid Whittington, and father caring for [my mother] Aurelia. [Editor's Note: Aurelia Whittington Franklin died in 1999] …

John Hope and Aurelia Franklin began their lives together in Raleigh-Durham. Although they lived in Washington, D.C., New York and Chicago, it was to Durham they returned. They subscribed to the Carolina Times in all of the places we lived, even in England. …

Bill Chafe [William Chafe, the Alice Mary Baldwin Professor of History at Duke, and a longtime friend of John Hope Franklin] perhaps said it best: ‘Walking with John Hope was like walking with Santa Claus. Everyone you meet has a story about him – how they met him and that he said or did something that marked their lives.’

John Whittington Franklin is Program Manager and Curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.