John Hope Franklin lived through America's most defining 20th-century transformation, the dismantling of legally-protected racial segregation. A renowned scholar, he has explored that transformation in its myriad aspects, and he was, and remains, an active participant. Born in 1915, he could not but participate: evicted from whites-only train cars, confined to segregated schools, and threatened--once with lynching. And yet he managed to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard. He has become one of the world's most celebrated historians and reshaped the way African American history is understood and taught. But Franklin's participation was much more fundamental than that. From his effort in 1934 to hand President Roosevelt a petition, whether aiding Thurgood Marshall's preparation for Brown v. Board in 1954, marching to Montgomery in 1965, or testifying against Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987, Franklin has pushed the national conversation on race towards humanity and equality.--From publisher description.