Franklin

Duke University will host “A Celebration of the Lives of John Hope and Aurelia Whittington Franklin” next week, to honor the late historian and his late wife, who were married on June 11, 1940.

Featured speakers at the June 11 event include former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who in 1997 appointed John Hope Franklin to chair a national task force on race, and attorney and civil rights leader Vernon Jordan, Franklin’s longtime friend. Duke trustee emerita Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans and Duke President Richard H. Brodhead will also give remarks. The celebration is open to the public, and begins at 11 a.m. in Duke Chapel.

John Hope Franklin, a chronicler of history who also shaped it, died March 25 from congestive heart failure. He was 94 years old.

In 1947, Franklin wrote “From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African-Americans,” his seminal work that is often touted as the foremost work in African American history. His research for the book led him to segregated libraries and archives at universities that wouldn’t even allow him to use the bathroom. One such place, Duke University, later opened the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies in 2001.

Per Franklin’s wishes, there was no funeral or memorial service following his death. Instead, his family planned a celebration of his and his wife’s lives in honor of their 69th wedding anniversary. Aurelia Whittington Franklin died in 1999.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, where as students John Hope Franklin met Aurelia Whittington, will perform three selections. Duke violinist Eric Pritchard and trumpet player James Ketch of the University of North Carolina will each perform dedicated works by Chapel Hill composer T.J. Anderson.

The program will be aired live on UNC-TV, and Duke will provide a live Webcast.

– Deborah Creighton Skinner,
with contributions by Marcia A. Wade

U.S. DOJ Safeguards Voting Rights Act

Supporters of the 1965 Voting Rights Act celebrated two victories this week as the United States Justice Department upheld sections of the law in Mississippi and Georgia that will help prevent discrimination in voter registration and at polling places.

The court informed Karen Handel, Georgia secretary of state, Monday that she had failed to show that two new voter verification procedures did not have a discriminatory effect on minority voters.

Shortly before last fall’s election, the Georgia Election Protection Coalition learned that a number of citizens could be denied the right to vote due to two new procedures that incorrectly identified a number of U.S. citizens as non-citizens. Since the secretary of state did not submit the procedures for preclearance before implementing them as instructed under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the coalition filed a federal lawsuit to stop Handel from using either process. Monday’s court decision bars Georgia from continuing the voter verification process.

The Justice Department also announced Monday that beginning on June 2, it will monitor polling places in Mississippi, New Jersey, and South Dakota to ensure compliance with the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting rights statutes.

The observers will record activities at polling locations in certain jurisdictions, and DOJ Civil Rights Division attorneys will maintain contact with local election officials. Visit their Website for more information about the Voting Rights Act and other federal voting laws.

–Marcia A. Wade

Amelia Boynton meets President Lyndon Johnson after the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. (Source: Amelia Boynton)

Civil Rights Wax Museum Planned in Selma

Plans to erect a civil rights wax museum in the historic city of Selma, Alabama, were announced Thursday.

The Atlanta-based Gateway Educational Foundation Inc, is spearheading efforts to convert the former home of Amelia and Samuel W. Boynton, a meeting ground for activists planning in the 1950s and 1960s, into a the museum with 12 to 15 statues of civil rights leaders.

“I have been working all of my life for my people, this museum is going to allow people to see more of what my husband and I have done in our lives,” said Amelia, who is 104. “This is an opportunity for [young people] to get an understanding of what their elders went through so they could have the freedoms they have today.”

The couple played an integral role in the black suffrage effort helping to plan and drum up support for protests in Selma. After Samuel’s death from complications due to a stroke in 1963, Amelia grew more ardent in her voting rights efforts. In 1964 she entered the race for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Congress, making her the first black woman from Alabama to seek a seat in Congress and the first woman to run on the state’s Democratic ticket.

“The Boyntons’ were tireless advocates, extending their home for uses far beyond the typical stayover,” said Genise Kemp-Brown, co-founder of Gateway. “Meetings held at their home ultimately led to passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, giving all African-Americans the right to vote.”

The home was recently listed on the Alabama Historic Register and has served as a reststop for some of the most notable leaders of the 20th century including Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington Carver, and Sen. Robert Kennedy. The museum will join the Brown Chapel, and Selma University among the landmarks marking Selma’s contribution to African-American history and culture.

Plans to convert the home will begin in July, and the museum is scheduled to open to the public in February 2011.

–Renita Burns

Multiracial Americans the Fastest Growing Group in U.S.

Latest Census estimates show that multiracial Americans have become the fastest growing demographic group, having a major impact on minority growth and challenging traditional ideas of race, according to an Associated Press report.

The multiracial populace rose 3.4% last year to about 5.2 million. First given the option in 2000, Americans who check more than one box for race on surveys have jumped by 33% and now make up 5% of the minority population. Millions more are believed to be uncounted.

The recent population growth, demographers say, is attributed to more social acceptance and slowing immigration. The high profile presence of leaders such as President Barack Obama and recently nominated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor are said to have an effect on those who might self-identify as multiracial.

Figures as of July 2008 show that California, Texas, New York, and Florida had the most multiracial people. When measured by percentage, Hawaii was first with almost 1 in 5 residents who were multiracial, followed by Alaska and Oklahoma, both at about 4%. Utah had the highest rate of growth of multiracial people in 2008 compared with last year.

–Janell Hazelwood

A little more than four decades ago, it was uncommon to see a black man vote without intimidation, let alone run for office. Now, 68% of voters say they believe America is ready for a black president, according to a CBS poll.

This recent reality is an indirect result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which some call the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress. The act prohibited the use of violence and intimidation to deny a person the right to vote.

Civil rights organizations rallied their resources to push voting rights to the forefront of issues leading up to the 1964 presidential election.

“Barack is standing on the shoulders of Fannie Lou Hamer and the named and unnamed people who worked behind and in front of the scenes so that we could be empowered to have our voices heard,” says Desiree S. Pedescleaux, president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

Obama’s speech during the 2004 Democratic National Convention helped ignite his popularity and set the stage for his eventual bid for the White House. Similarly, in 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and civil rights activist, made one of the most notable speeches ever broadcast from the floors of the DNC. In her speech, Hamer questioned whether this was really “the land of the free and the home of the brave” when lives were threatened because of attempting to vote.

Despite losing her job and receiving a savage beating prompted by her voter registration efforts, Hamer joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and continued to register others to vote in Mississippi. She organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party because the Mississippi Democratic Party refused to seat any black delegates. Hamer’s speech in 1964 and the work of the Freedom Democrats influenced the Democratic Party to adopt a clause which demanded equal representation at the 1968 delegation.

Between 1965 and 1988, black voter registration rates increased by 63% in Mississippi alone. In five southern states, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas, the total increase of black elected officials between 1970 and 2000 was more than tenfold.

“Prior to the Voting Rights Act there were about 70 black elected officials. It soared to around 2,000 soon after, and now there are some 10,000 changing the law to bring down the barriers,” says Michael Fauntroy, assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University.

The act helped open the door for the first black mayors and congressmen including politicians such as Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the first black senator elected since Reconstruction, and Cleveland’s Carl B. Stokes, the nation’s first black mayor.

“[Former] mayors such as David Dinkins [of New York] and Tom Bradley [of Los Angeles] made Americans look at black elected officials in different ways. Even those who are not African American have been helpful for setting the stage for the first black president,” says Fauntroy, author of Republicans and the Black Vote.

Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress in 1968, became the first black woman from a major party to run for president of the United States.

“Shirley Chisholm, Angela Davis, and Jesse Jackson ran not so much knowing they would be elected president,” Pedescleaux says. “They ran to get the issues out and on the table. Once the major parties see interest in those issues, they absorb them and [those issues] become part of the major party agenda. Shirley Chisholm fought for women’s rights, and now women are a big part of both of the parties, and women’s issues are woven into the agendas of both major parties.”

“Before Barack Obama, no African American had done as well as Jesse Jackson Sr. did in his presidential campaigns of 1984 and 1988,” Fauntroy says.

Jackson, founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, won 11 primaries and caucuses and 1,218 of the 3,911 delegates in 1988. He came in second at the Democratic National Convention of that year. At one point, after winning the Michigan primary, Jackson was considered the frontrunner in the race, ahead of Michael Dukakis, the eventual Democratic nominee, and future vice president Al Gore.

“In many ways I think that Jackson was responsible for mobilizing black people in the 1980s,” says Wilbur C. Rich, the William R. Kenan professor of political science at Wellesley College. “He said this is the second stage of the civil rights movement. A lot of people voted for the first time. He was going into places that white candidates never went to, and it was good.”

Despite Jackson’s victories and winning the caucus in Vermont, a state that, according to 1980 census figures, was 99% white, Jackson and his candidacy has in recent years been somewhat dismissed as less than substantial. This is because, among other reasons, he was a candidate that strongly advocated for issues directly affecting the black community.

Unlike Jackson, it seems that Obama is considered by many as the American candidate as opposed to just the black candidate. Constituents felt the same way about Douglas Wilder of Virginia, the country’s first black governor, and Norman Rice, who in 1989 was elected Seattle’s first black mayor despite a black population of less than 10%.

According to a recent Gallup poll, a large majority of black people, 78%, and an even larger majority of white people, 88%, say the fact that Obama is black makes no difference in terms of their likelihood of voting for him for president. “The country is ready [for a black president] because of Obama’s presence, his personality and his life story,” Fauntroy says.