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Duke Libraries hosts the kick off event for the John Hope Franklin Centenary

Vernon Jordan cites the many ways the historian changed 'the Ivory Tower'

Vernon Jordan at JHF 100

Sophomore Usman Mahmood, senior Cherranda Smith and junior Marcus Montaño meet with Vernon Jordan at the centennial kickoff. Photo by Jared Lazarus/Duke University Photography

On Wednesday evening, members of the Durham community joined Duke University faculty, staff and students to pay tribute to John Hope Franklin, the esteemed historian who helped shape the field of American history.

The event, featuring civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, was the formal kickoff for the university’s yearlong celebration in recognition of Franklin’s 100th birthday. Franklin, who passed away in 2009 at age 94, taught at Duke for the last 30 years of his life.

“We don’t observe the 100th birthday of everybody,” said President Richard H. Brodhead. “We lift up the lives we want to look back on with honor.”

The centenary celebration, “John Hope Franklin@100: Scholar, Activist, Citizen” includes events at Duke, North Carolina Central University, and the Durham Library.

Jordan, past president of the United Negro College Fund and a friend of Franklin, held the audience of nearly 200 in the library’s Von der Heyden Pavilion in rapt attention as he shared his own memories of Franklin.

“Nearly everything he did was a first,” Jordan said, touching on Franklin’s numerous accomplishments such as contributing research to the historic school desegregation case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and serving as the first African-American chair of a academic department at a major research university.

Franklin saw life as an embodiment of his middle name and “vaulted over every obstacle set before him,” Jordan said. “Despite the persistence of racism, his intellect would not let him abandon the field.”

Vernon Jordan
Vernon Jordan speaking at the centennial. Photo by Jared Lazarus/Duke University Photography

“We can talk about Franklin’s legacy, his scholarship and vision, but he would not want us to celebrate his life solely as a retrospective exercise,” Jordan said in a speech that touched on current events in the African-American community including the #BlackLivesMatter campaign and other landmarks of the Civil Rights movement.

“There are many Edmund Pettus bridges yet to be crossed,” said Jordan, referring to anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

Echoing the title of Franklin’s autobiography, “Mirror to America,” Jordan said Americans must take a closer look at themselves. He said Franklin would feel great sorrow about the lack of progress on wealth inequality, segregated schools, disproportionate unemployment and incarceration rates, and the roll back of civil rights victories.

However, Jordan said his friend would be proud to see races and religions living side by side in harmony and the increase in the number of black scholars and CEOs. Franklin was proud of the election of the nation’s first black president, calling it “the closest thing to a peaceful revolution.”

“The notion of this [celebration] happening at Duke University 100 years ago would have been beyond comprehension,” said Jordan, noting the many racial slights Franklin endured. “The idea that John Hope would teach here was laughable.”

“Chip by chip, you can change things,” Franklin told Jordan shortly before his death. “For 94 years John Hope Franklin was willing to keep trying, to mentor, to march until the ‘whites only’ signs were removed, until the presidents who spurned him made him chair of their departments and president of their historical associations.

“He made the Ivory Tower a little less ivory. That is his legacy,” Jordan said.