Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by John Hope Franklin

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American historian John Hope Franklin.

Last updated on April 15, 2025.

John Hope Franklin was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

American - Historian | January 2, 1915 - March 25, 2009

Source: Wikipedia

If the house is to be set in order, one cannot begin with the present; he must begin with the past.

John Hope Franklin

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.

John Hope Franklin

We also learn that this country and the Western world have no monopoly of goodness and truth and scholarship, we begin to appreciate the ingredients that are indispensable to making a better world. In a life of learning that is, perhaps, the greatest lesson of all.

John Hope Franklin

It was necessary, as a black historian, to have a personal agenda.

John Hope Franklin

There's no reason in the world why black [people] should not be regarded as an attribute that is not degrading but is positive. There's no reason in the world why any person should think that white is degrading.

John Hope Franklin

The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation.

John Hope Franklin

I am very fortunate, and I never stopped being thankful.

John Hope Franklin

If the house is to be set in the order, one cannot begin with the present; he must begin with the past

John Hope Franklin

I went to college on my way to be a lawyer. That's all I wanted to do was go back home and help my daddy. I thought we were poor because he was not a good businessman and I was going to become the lawyer who would take charge of the business.

John Hope Franklin

One of the problems in the United States is the refusal on the part of our young people to remember or to want to remember, or to recognize the experiences of the past as being relevant, germane, important to the present and to the future. They simply don't want anything that's painful. They want to live in a painless society where everything is pleasant, and everything is joyful.

John Hope Franklin

Love each other. Regard each other as members of one family.

John Hope Franklin

My challenge was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly.

John Hope Franklin

Top 12 Quotes & Sayings by John Hope Franklin

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