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.

Obama and the Lessons of History

There seems to be something of a movement among professional historians and other scholars to teach President Obama the lessons of history. More specifically, there have been a number of op-eds which have sought to point out historical lessons to apply to governing. One example is this essay by David T. Beito and Jonathan Bean which offers the new president lessons from Booker T. Washington. Others have used FDR, Lincoln, Churchill, the Great Depression, and countless other subjects to offer Obama historical insight into the myriad of tasks before him. If he read all these, he might not have time to do his job. I find this interesting. I agree that it is important to learn the lessons of history, but which lessons? Identifying the right lessons is at least as important as selecting a topic that might have contemporary significance. I'm still thinking about this...

African American History in Asheville

The literature on African Americans in Appalachia remains pretty small. Today, WUNC's "The State of Things" hosted Darin Waters, a Ph.D. candidate at UNC who is writing about this long-neglected aspect of Appalachian and North Carolina history. This broadcast is worth your time.