John Hope Franklin makes front-page news

60 years ago today: Front-page headline in the New York Times: “Negro Educator Chosen to Head Department at Brooklyn College. Howard University Professor Will be First of Race to Hold That Rank Here.”

John Hope Franklin‘s appointment marks the first time an African-American has been appointed chairman of any department at a traditionally white institution.

According to the Times, “[Franklin’s] greatest research ambition is…  an explanation of the South’s inclination to belligerency and emotionalism.”

In 1982 Franklin will return to North Carolina, where he authored the classic “From Slavery to Freedom” and taught at St. Augustine’s College and North Carolina College for Negroes, to become James B. Duke professor of history at Duke University.