I just heard of the death of Historian John Hope Franklin. It is a sad event, but this is a man who really made a difference. It is because of him that my journey into liberalism began. I was fresh out of college and teaching in Southern California in the fall of 1966. The newly adopted state text book for 8th grade social studies was co-authored by Dr. Franklin. I had never heard of him at that time, but the crazy righties came out of the woodwork to protest this text because he was one of many co-authors. I quickly realized that many of their quotes from the book were parts of sentences taken waaaaay out of context. In some cases the beginning and ending of a quotation had several PAGES between them and were talking about different things.
Thank you, John Hope Franklin for helping me be who I am today. He taught me to be skeptical and seek out original sources for my information. The world is less without you.