
{"id":6349,"date":"2009-07-02T08:25:47","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T16:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6349"},"modified":"2009-07-02T08:25:47","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T16:25:47","slug":"what-would-john-hope-franklin-say-about-the-legislature%e2%80%99s-decision-to-honor-jesse-helms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/07\/02\/what-would-john-hope-franklin-say-about-the-legislature%e2%80%99s-decision-to-honor-jesse-helms\/","title":{"rendered":"What would John Hope Franklin say about the legislature\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to honor Jesse Helms?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Chris Kromm<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At the recent memorial for John Hope Franklin at Duke University, playwright Emily Mann \u00e2\u20ac\u201d daughter of historian Arthur Mann, a close friend of Franklin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u201d related one of many illuminating personal stories about the pioneering historian and scholar. In a conversation about the North Carolina political landscape, someone asked Franklin, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where did Jesse Helms come from?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Franklin quickly replied, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153From hell\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not missing a beat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mann said.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It was a sentiment shared by many African-Americans, civil rights allies and others in North Carolina. Helms rose to prominence in the 1960s for his vitriolic rants against integration on Raleigh-area television. His Old South views never really changed: Into the 1990s, he was still giggling at the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153N\u00e2\u20ac\u009d word and calling gay people \u00e2\u20ac\u0153weak, morally sick wretches.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Helms put his prejudices into practice, too: In 1996, the Department of Justice famously admonished Helms for sending 125,000 letters to voters in African-American precincts warning they may be arrested if they tried to vote. As columnist David Broder, the paragon of middle-of-the-road Washington journalism, wrote at the time of Helms\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 death, the senator was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>One wonders what Franklin would have thought about the North Carolina General Assembly\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision this week to pass a resolution honoring Helms by overwhelming margins.<\/p>\n<p>The text of the resolution \u00e2\u20ac\u201d which passed 41-1 in the Senate and 98-0 in the House \u00e2\u20ac\u201d skips past Helms\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 media bromides for segregation, describing his TV career as one \u00e2\u20ac\u0153devoted \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 to the highest standards of journalism.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Helms is also praised in the bill for his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153unyielding commitment to integrity and the principles of faith, freedom, and the power of free enterprise\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a leading historical figure of our times.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Seventeen lawmakers abstained, including a half-dozen members of the House black caucus who waited outside the chambers rather than participate in the vote. Only one North Carolina legislator \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Sen. Julie Boseman, a white Democrat from Wilmington \u00e2\u20ac\u201d voted against the Helms resolution.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notable that the Helms resolution passed in record time: According to the N.C. General Assembly website, the measure was introduced on Monday, June 8, and was quickly passed just two days later.<\/p>\n<p>What about Franklin, who lived in North Carolina the last 26 years of his life, longer than anywhere else? Franklin was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom while a professor at Duke University in 1995 and three academic units at Duke are named after him.<\/p>\n<p>On April 1, N.C. Sen. Floyd McKissick introduced a resolution honoring Franklin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contributions to the state. The General Assembly website lists the resolution as still in committee. A House counterpart was introduced on April 9 and was referred to the Committee on Rules, Calendar and Operations of the House, where it still sits.<\/p>\n<p>I contacted McKissick \u00e2\u20ac\u201d one of the lawmakers who abstained from the Helms vote \u00e2\u20ac\u201d who told me they are waiting so they can coordinate having the Franklin family present when the bill comes to the floor. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is so much nicer when the family is there to hear what is said about this person and their impact,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d McKissick said.<\/p>\n<p>Until that happens, North Carolina \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a state where the majority voted for the first African-American president in history \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is on record honoring a symbol of the state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s checkered Old South past, but not the scholar who hundreds remembered today as a voice for North Carolina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard-fought present and future.<\/p>\n<p><em>Chris Kromm is the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chris Kromm At the recent memorial for John Hope Franklin at Duke University, playwright Emily Mann \u00e2\u20ac\u201d daughter of historian Arthur Mann, a close friend of Franklin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u201d related one of many illuminating personal stories about the pioneering historian and scholar. In a conversation about the North Carolina political landscape, someone asked Franklin, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6350,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions\/6350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}