Volume 53, Number 1 · January 12, 2006
The Man Who Changed History
By William H. McNeill
Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin
by John Hope Franklin
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 401 pp., $25.00
On October 27, 2005, John Hope Franklin and President Bill Clinton spoke at the New York Public Library before an overflow crowd about the themes of Franklin's autobiography Mirror to America. Such a conspicuous, unique launch for his autobiography can be contrasted with Franklin's start in life, recorded in his father's diary as follows: 'The year 1915 was uneventful, except for the same grinding poverty.... This year's strain was agrivated [sic] by the birth of a child, John Hope.' Nineteen years later, John Hope went to buy ice cream in a Mississippi store, whereupon
Review, 4549 words
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