John Hope Franklin was a pioneering historian whose life’s work focused on ensuring that the lives and achievements of African Americans were fully incorporated into the historical narrative of America. Franklin was the first Black department chair at a predominantly white institution, Brooklyn College; the first Black professor to hold an endowed chair at Duke University; and the first Black president of the American Historical Association.
Franklin’s passion for inclusivity and social justice extended well beyond the walls of the academy. He served as an advisor to the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund on cases that included Brown v. Board of Education, joined protestors in a 1965 march led by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, and chaired President Clinton’s One America Initiative, which was dedicated to addressing racial and ethnic divisions. In 1995 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Franklin delivered the keynote address at the National Humanities Center’s dedication in 1979 and remained deeply engaged for over 30 years as a Fellow (1980–82) and then as a Trustee from 1982 to 1991 when he was elected Trustee Emeritus.
In 2000, numerous generous donors, friends, and associates of Dr. Franklin endowed the John Hope Franklin Senior Fellowship in his honor. The fellowship is awarded each year to a scholar working in American history and culture.
| 2000–2001 | Paulla Ebron | Stanford University | Making Tropical Africa in the Georgia Sea Islands |
| 2001–2002 | Gerald Early | Washington University in St. Louis | When Worlds Collide: African-Americans in the Age of Integration, 1950–1954 |
| 2002–2003 | James Henretta | University of Maryland-College Park | The Liberal State in America, 1820–1950 |
| 2003–2004 | Samuel Floyd | Columbia College Chicago | Music by Black Composers, 1550–1980 |
| 2004–2005 | Timothy Tyson | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Deep River: African American Freedom Movements in the 20th-Century South |
| 2005–2006 | Maryemma Graham | University of Kansas | The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker |
| 2006–2007 | Glenda Gilmore | Yale University | From Social Justice to Civil Rights, 1919–1950 |
| 2007–2008 | Sandra Greene | Cornell University | Fragments: Memories of Enslavement from Ghana |
| 2008–2009 | Nancy MacLean | Northwestern University | “Freedom Is the Answer”: The Strange Career of School Vouchers |
| 2009–2010 | Mia Bay | Rutgers University | The Ambidexter Philosopher: Thomas Jefferson in Black Thought, 1776–1877 |
| 2010–2011 | Luis Nicolau Pares | Federal University of Bahia, Brazil | Religion on the Pre-Colonial Slave Coast and its Atlantic Repercussions |
| 2011–2012 | Ezra Greenspan | Southern Methodist University | William Wells Brown: An African American Life |
| 2012–2013 | Jeremy Popkin | University of Kentucky | Freedom and Unfreedom in the Age of Revolution |
| 2013–2014 | Evelyn Higginbotham | Harvard University | The Great Question of Human Rights in American History |
| 2014–2015 | Anat Biletzki | Quinnipiac University | Philosophical Investigations into Human Rights |
| 2014–2015 | Sandra Greene | Cornell University | African Slaveholders in the Age of Abolition |
| 2015–2016 | Brenda Stevenson | University of California, Los Angeles | Fanny’s World of Women: Generations of Enslaved Black Females in North America, 1620–1860 |
| 2016–2017 | Celeste-Marie Bernier | University of Edinburgh | Living Parchments: Artistry and Authorship in the Life and Works of Frederick Douglass |
| 2017–2018 | Wendy Griswold | Northwestern University | Placements: Position and Location through American Culture |
| 2018–2019 | Trudier Harris | University of Alabama | Ungraspable?: Depictions of Home in African American Literature |
| 2019–2020 | Christina Snyder | Pennsylvania State University | Slavery After the Civil War: The Slow Death and Many Afterlives of Bondage |
| 2020–2021 | Keith D. Miller | Arizona State University | Who Wrote The Autobiography of Malcolm X? |
| 2021–2022 | Nancy MacLean | Duke University | Capitalism and the Constitution: An Overlooked American Lineage and a Looming Peril |
| 2022–2023 | Blair L. M. Kelley | North Carolina State University | Black Folk: The Promise of the Black Working Class |
| 2023–2024 | Devin Fergus | University of Missouri | The Making and Unmaking of One America: President Clinton’s Initiative on Race |
| 2024–2025 | Nicholas Boggs | Independent Scholar | James Baldwin: A Love Story |