My Life and an Era The Autobiography of Buck Colbert Franklin (review)

torians, the "mystique" in EUis's tide wül conjure up connections to Howard Zinn's The Southern Mystique (1964), a book that, in its analysis of the Soudi as quintessentially American, helped stimulate the ongoing debate over whether the region is different from and at odds with the rest of the country. Yet Ellis seems unaware of this important precedent, and makes no real effort to define what he means by "mystique," using the term to explain Bingham's personal attachment to the South: as "the appeal of the myths and legends of the Old South, the southern mystique," and later, as the "pro-southern poUtics and sympathy for the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, the southern mystique." These are minor quibbles, though, with a work ofsoUd, comprehensive scholarship that makes an important contribution to urban, Kentucky, southern, and American history. My Life and an Era The Autobiography of Buck Colbert FrankUn Edited byJohn Hope FrankUn andJohn Whittington Franklin Louisiana State University Press, 1997 288 pp. Cloth, $29.95 Reviewed by Jimmie Lewis Franklin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University, former president of the Southern Historical Association, and author of several books about African American history, including Back to Birmingham: RichardArringtonJr. andHis Times from University of Alabama Press, 1989. Here is a powerful story that transcends mere description of the author's era. It probes deeply the moral and philosophical aspects of cultural relationships among various peoples, the responsibiUty of government to ensure safety and justice, and what it means to be human in a supposedly democratic society built upon aJudeo-Christian ethic. Buck Colbert FrankUn's autobiography joins those ofAda Lois Sipuel, who integrated the Oklahoma University law school in 1948, civil rights activist Clara Luper, and noveUst Ralph ElUson in offering its insight into the role black Oklahomans played in the formation ofthe state and in social reform. Born in 1 879 to David and MiUey FrankUn, Buck Colbert FrankUn Uved to witness the emergence ofOklahoma from its territorial stage to statehood. For over five decades he watched carefully the events that led to entrenched segregation 84 southern cultures, Fall 1999 : Reviews and, ultimately, to its fall with the 1954 Brown decision. Although he never completed his coUege work, young FrankUn attended Roger WiUiams CoUege in NashviUe and Adanta Baptist CoUege (nowMorehouse CoUege) before returning to Oklahoma where he passed the bar. As an attorney and active community member with national contacts, FrankUn occupied a strategic position from which to observe state and national history as it unfolded. He met the great and neargreat within the African American society of his time, and his story strengthens and authenticates much ofwhat we know about die pUght ofAfrican Americans. This autobiography, though, is more than a thoughtful commentary on heritage and the challenges to black existence in a society that Umited opportunities and access to poUtical, social, and economic power. The author's discussion of the family values that characterized his upbringing teUs us much about the inner Ufe of the black community and other institutional structures in Oklahoma during his era. Although close to his mother, a teacher who was part Choctaw, Franklin enjoyed an even stronger tie to his father, who died during the young man's coUege years. One senses the closeness between father and son as David FrankUn tries to shelter his offspring from the harshness of discrimination and when he protects him from frontier dangers as the two make a long journey from southern Oklahoma to what is now the western part ofthe state. Later, Buck Colbert FrankUn shows the same devotion to his four children—B. CJr., MozzeUa, Anne, and John Hope. The author's wife, MoIUe, played a central role in his Ufe and in the black community . Readers interested in women's history wiU profit from the attention FrankUn has given his spouse and her activities. A community-minded person, MoIUe Parker FrankUn created the first day nursery for black children in Tulsa, after the family moved there from the aU-black town ofRentiesviUe. With a deep concern for young people, she worked to get employment for black youths in local businesses that had not previously employed diem. For a time...