"From Slavery to Freedom

Economic inequalities are the remaining frontier of the civil rights era, Oklahoma-born historian, author and Duke University professor emeritus John Hope Franklin said Friday.





"The major unfinished business of the civil rights movement was the economy,” he said, explaining how the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was promoting black economic empowerment at the time of his 1968 assassination. "Fool with the economy, and they'll shoot you.”

Franklin was in Oklahoma City to speak to the media before speaking again today at the Oklahoma History Center as part of the Oklahoma Historical Society's "Speaking of the Truth” lecture series. Today's 1 to 2 p.m. lecture is free to the public.

He spoke of the recent Freedmen vote in which Cherokees voted to remove the descendants of freed black slaves who were adopted into the tribe.

"I think it's pretty late in the day for any group to be disowning a group of people. ... I think it's scandalous,” he said, later calling it "presumptuous.”

"I was so sorry to hear it,” said Franklin, who has Choctaw and Chickasaw heritage in his family.

Lack of options
Most of Franklin's remarks dealt with the "enormous problems” among the young, and poor blacks' lack of options, from finding decent-paying jobs to enjoying upward mobility. He's convinced a low minimum wage and all-volunteer military that accepts more and more minority recruits combine to keep blacks from rising to the top levels of industry.

He called it "a fairly wide conspiracy.”

"This kind of affluence is not to be extended to certain people. The door has been slammed in their faces,” he said, calling the disenfranchised "a metaphor” for society's failure.

Black-history text
Born in Rentiesville, Franklin, 92, wrote "From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans” in 1947. The book is now in its eighth edition and has been translated into six languages.

Bob Blackburn, executive director of the Oklahoma Historical Society, recalled reading "From Slavery to Freedom” in college. He said the book remained the "gold standard” of black-history texts.

After earning degrees from Fisk and Harvard universities, Franklin taught at six colleges and universities in the United States and at Cambridge University in England before accepting an endowed chair at Duke in 1982.

He also served as chairman of former President Clinton's commission on race and was one of seven plaintiffs in an unsuccessful civil lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. His father's law office was destroyed in the riot.

"It's clear to me now the black community was permanently injured, maimed (in the riot),” he said Friday, criticizing the city government's lack of contrition over the years.