Tulsa Writer’s Insights on Honoring the Legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre
In Tulsa, we take pride in an exceptional Black man, John Hope Franklin. Although he wasn’t born here and spent only six formative years in this city, he remains one of its most notable figures. Franklin graduated valedictorian from the segregated Booker T. Washington High School at age 16 in 1931 and became the first Black individual to earn a full professorship at a predominantly white university, Brooklyn College, where he led the history department.