John Hope Franklin

Introduction

John Hope Franklin is one of the most esteemed authors of this century, having had a significant role to play in the struggle against racial segregation in the United States. He remains a favorite figurehead in American historians, as well as activists who at the time of strife, would consider Franklin a beacon of hope. He was one of the few people who did everything in his power to receive a good education, regardless of the racism and violence he faced and witnessed. He was revered as being a honest and straight forward author, with his stance on prose clear and precise, leaving nothing out. The public service that he performed by speaking out against the struggles of black Americans is something that has made a deep impact on society, and is perhaps one of the reasons that the nation chose to vote for a black President, something that caused a massive uproar all around the world, but one can imagine the long wait as being harrowing, since racial segregation was supposed to have ended a long time ago( Merickel, 2002). In this paper, I will be analyzing John Franklin's piece, “The Train from Hate”, which is a rather self explanatory title and chronicles the time that the author spent and the events he witnessed inside the train.

Thesis Statement:

“What makes John Hope Franklin unique in telling the story of The Train from Hate is the clear understanding of prose and the brutal honesty of someone who has faced discrimination from a very young age”

John Franklin has written several books centered around the topic of racism and understandably, since he rose in his chosen career of history through listing down the events of this particular time in the nation as he saw them. The racial separation is something that was heinous then and is heinous now, and John Franklin offers the audience a real sense of life as it was back then, when black people could not even avoid segregation in public bathrooms. His works detail the life and times of fictional as well as real life characters, including primary relatable sources and places. He chronicles the life of a black American in an authentic and honest manner, in Train from hate, using events relating to the Southern region of America where the black citizens would struggle the most against oppression and segregation. His purpose in writing this book is to ensure that his audiences are aware of the struggle that the black Americans faced for meandering tasks, the strife they encountered in order to gain respect, equality and obtaining freedom. In a Train from Hate, the purpose is little different, with the culture and heritage of the black Americans clearly listed in adoring detail and the problems faced by them honestly depicted through a clear picture. Acquiring freedom through the journey in the train seems to have been the ultimate goal of the author in a hypothetical sense, as he talks of how he did not even notice ...