Category Archives: Franklin Research Center

Events, Franklin Research Center, Readings and Talks

Tea with Trailblazers: MaryAnn Black

Date: Wednesday 3 February 2010
Time: 2:30 PM
Location: The History of Medicine Reading Room, Duke Medical Center Library (map and directions)
Contact Information: Jessica Roseberry, 919-383-2653 or jessica.roseberry(at)duke.edu

MaryAnn BlackIn celebration of Black History Month, the Duke Medical Center Library and Archives has partnered with the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture to present a special guest, MaryAnn Black, MSW, LCSW. In an informal talk, Ms. Black will share some of her “trailblazing” experiences at Duke and in the Durham community. Ms. Black, who has worked for Duke University since 1981, is the Associate Vice President for Community Relations for the Duke University Health System. Tea and light refreshments will be served.

Events, Exhibits, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, Readings and Talks

Opening Reception for “Conscience of a Nation”

Date: Wednesday 20 January 2010
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Perkins Library Rare Book Room
Contact Information: Karen Jean Hunt, 919-660-5922 or k.j.hunt(at)duke.edu

Join the exhibit curators and the staff of the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture as they celebrate the legacy of Professor John Hope Franklin (1915-2009).

Speakers will include Judge Allyson Duncan, a 1975 Duke Law graduate, and Dr. Walter Brown, former dean of North Carolina Central University’s School of Education.

Events, Exhibits, Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections

“Conscience of a Nation: John Hope Franklin on African American History”

Date: 13 January-31 March 2010
Location and Time: Rare Book Room cases during library hours
Contact Information: Janie Morris, 919-660-5819 or janie.morris(at)duke.edu, or Paula Mangiafico, 919-660-5915 or paula.mangiafico(at)duke.edu

Sit-In Songs LP, 1962. From the Frederick Herzog Papers


The recent passing of historian, author, teacher, and activist John Hope Franklin has prompted all of us at the RBMSCL to consider the role of historical research and education in ending injustice, fear, and hatred. As Dr. Franklin wrote in a 3 June 2002 letter to fellow historian Nell Irvin Painter (on display in this exhibit), history’s responsibility is “to illuminate and interpret the past in order to ‘map’ what we think the future should be.”

Inspired by Dr. Franklin’s powerful words, this exhibit is a tribute to his legacy. The exhibit uses materials from the RBMSCL’s collections to explore four themes crucial to understanding the history of African Americans in the United States: African American enslavement, segregation and the Jim Crow era, the Civil Rights Movement, and the contributions of African American historians.

Dr. Franklin’s papers (collection inventory here) are held by the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. For more information on using this collection, contact the Franklin Research Center staff at franklin-collection(at)duke.edu.

Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library, News and Features

North Carolina Mutual Transfers Collections to Duke and NCCU

Duke University’s John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture and North Carolina Central University’s University Archives, Records and History Department are the joint recipients of the historical archives of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the nation’s largest and oldest African American life insurance company.

North Carolina Mutual founders John Merrick, C.C. Spaulding, and Aaron Moore
North Carolina Mutual past presidents (l to r) John Merrick, C.C. Spaulding, and Aaron Moore

 

The company’s archives includes thousands of business documents, newsletters, commercials, photography and books which chronicle the vitality of Durham’s “Black Wall Street” in the early 20th century. During the Jim Crow era, North Carolina Mutual allowed the black middle class access to home mortgages, small business loans, and insurance. The archives may be the largest assemblage of African American corporate material in the nation.

 

For more information on using this collection, contact the Franklin Research Center staff at franklin-collection(at)duke.edu.
Franklin Research Center, From Our Collections, New at the Rubenstein Library, News and Features

Franklin Research Center Acquires John Wesley Blassingame Papers

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture is pleased to announce its recent acquisition of the papers of John Wesley Blassingame, the nationally-renowned scholar of American history and author of such influential works as The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South and Frederick Douglass: The Clarion Voice.

Blassingame’s path-breaking scholarship has had a profound impact on the American understanding of slavery and the African American experience. The collection includes correspondence, personal manuscripts and research files from Blassingame’s long academic career, and is particularly rich in materials drawn from his work on the Frederick Douglass Papers.

For more information on using this collection, contact the Franklin Research Center staff at franklin-collection(at)duke.edu.

Bingham Center, Do Your Research, Franklin Research Center, Hartman Center, News and Features, Travel Grants

Now Accepting Travel Grant Applications

The RBMSCL is now accepting applications for our 2010-2011 travel grants. The Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History and Culture, the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, and the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising & Marketing History will award up to $1,000 per recipient to fund travel and other expenses related to visiting the RBMSCL to use their collections. The grants are open to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and independent scholars living outside a 50-mile radius from Durham, NC.

More details—and the grant application—may be found here. Applications must be postmarked no later than January 29, 2010. Recipients will be announced in March 2010.