John Hope Franklin, RIP

Historian and civil rights pioneer John Hope Franklin laid his burden down this morning at the age of 94. I met him once at the book exhibit at a Southern Historical Association Meeting in Birmingham and we talked fly fishing. A kind and gracious man to a young grad student, something I'll always remember. It can be said of few historians that an individual both defined a field and worked successfully to make the world a better, more just place. John Hope Franklin was such a man. We all should aspire to leave such a legacy.