John Hope Franklin

April 7, 2008 / Add comment

Rose rebroadcasts his inspirational interview with John Hope Franklin, a professor of American history at Duke University. Though the segment is about the 91-year-old's autobiography, Mirror to America, it's just as much a personal account of 20th-century America. Rose leads Franklin through his youth in Oklahoma, his education at Fisk and Harvard Universities, and his civil rights activism. Afraid today's entertainment-obsessed society has lost its focus, Franklin suggests that America has regressed socially and racially during the past 50 years. He hopes his life will inspire others to use scholarship for "the wellbeing and welfare of our country."