Fisk University

John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American... Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma to attorney, B. C. Franklin and his wife Mollie, and named after John Hope. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from Fisk University in 1935 and gained a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University. Franklin met and courted Aurelia Whittington at Fisk. They married on June 11, 1940 at her parents' home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Their only child, John Whittington Franklin, was born August 24, 1952. Aurelia was a librarian. Their marriage lasted 59 years, until January 27, 1999, when she succumbed to a long illness.
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Nikki Giovanni is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Her primary focus is on the individual and the power one has to... make a difference in oneself and in the lives of others. Giovanni’s poetry expresses strong racial pride, respect for family, and her own experiences as a daughter, a civil rights activist, and a mother. She is currently a distinguished professor of English at Virginia Tech. Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee to Yolande Cornelia, Sr. and Jones "Gus" Giovanni. She grew up in Lincoln Heights, a suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio, and in 1960 began her studies at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, her grandfather's alma mater. She graduated in 1967 with honors, receiving a B.A. in history. Afterward she went on to attend the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. In 1969 Giovanni began teaching at Livingston College of Rutgers University, and since 1987, she has taught writing and literature at Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor.
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John Robert Lewis is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. He was a leader in the American Civil... Rights Movement and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee , playing a key role in the struggle to end segregation. He is a member of the Democratic Party and is one of the most liberal legislators. Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama, the third son of Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis. His parents were sharecroppers. Lewis was educated at the Pike County Training High School, Brundidge, Alabama and also American Baptist Theological Seminary and at Fisk University, both in Nashville, Tennessee, where he became active in the local sit-in movement. As a student he made a systematic study of the techniques and philosophy of nonviolence, and with his fellow students prepared thoroughly for their first actions. He participated in the Freedom Rides to desegregate the South, and was a national leader in the struggle for civil rights. In an interview John Lewis said "I saw racial discrimination as a young child.
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Judith Ann Jamison is an American dancer and choreographer, best known as the Artistic Director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Judith... Jamison was born on May 10, 1943 and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her mother, father, and older brother. Her father taught her to play the piano,and violin. She was exposed to the prominent art culture in Philadelphia from a very early age. At the age of six, she began her dance training at Judimar School of Dance. There she studied with Marion Cuyjet who became one of Jamison’s early mentors. Under Cuyjet’s tutelage, Jamison studied classical ballet, and modern dance. The Judimar studios were treated as a “holy place” and there was always a sense of performance and theatricality in Cuyjet’s classes. By age eight, Jamison began dancing on pointe and started taking classes in tap dancing, acrobatics, and Dunham technique . A few years later, Cuyjet began sending Jamison to other teachers to advance her dance education.
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William Manning Marable was an American professor of public affairs, history and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Marable founded... and directed the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Marable authored several texts and was active in progressive political causes. At the time of his death, Marable had completed a biography of human rights activist Malcolm X, entitled Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for History. Marable was born in Dayton, Ohio. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Earlham College and went on to earn his master's degree and Ph.D. in history, at University of Wisconsin, and University of Maryland. Marable served on the faculty of Tuskegee Institute, University of San Francisco, Cornell University, Fisk University, served as the founding director of the Africana and Hispanic Studies Program at Colgate University, Purdue University, Ohio State University, and University of Colorado at Boulder, where he was chairman of the Department of Black Studies.
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Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., is an American environmental activist, author, businessperson, former politician and former journalist. He served as the... forty-fifth Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton.
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John Hope Franklin was a United States historian and past president of Phi Beta Kappa, the Organization of American Historians, the American... Historical Association, and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom, first published in 1947, and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Franklin was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma to attorney, B. C. Franklin and his wife Mollie, and named after John Hope. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He graduated from Fisk University in 1935 and gained a doctorate in history in 1941 from Harvard University. Franklin met and courted Aurelia Whittington at Fisk. They married on June 11, 1940 at her parents' home in Goldsboro, North Carolina. Their only child, John Whittington Franklin, was born August 24, 1952. Aurelia was a librarian. Their marriage lasted 59 years, until January 27, 1999, when she succumbed to a long illness.
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