John Hope Franklin

· “My fondest dream would be to create a work of scholarship in the field of African American literature as germinal, as salient, as compelling, and as timeless as From Slavery to Freedom.” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, Harvard University about”From Slavery to Freedom”

· “John Hope Franklin is a true role model. He embodies the naive optimism, i.e., that one can go from slavery to freedom, from ignorance to intelligence, can experience cruelty, yet manifest kindness. In Mirror to America, each citizen can see herself and himself, reflected in the life of this great American.” — Maya Angelou

· “Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin is an astonishingly beautiful, deeply intelligent record of an extraordinary life. Required reading lest we forget what is possible in a race-based society.” — Toni Morrison, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature

· “With his remarkable sense of humanity, renowned historian John Hope Franklin shares his life journey – an odyssey marked by scholarship, public service, and his passionate commitment to improving the condition of African Americans and their relations with their fellow citizens. Through candid stories of Franklin’s relentless pursuit of equality, Mirror to America calls upon all Americans to look at our nation’s past so that we may destroy the color line that continues to divide our country, and progress together into the future.” — President William Jefferson Clinton

· “This is the most important autobiography of the year! John Hope Franklin is a national treasure. Mirror to America is cause for a national celebration. For me, and countless others, Dr. Franklin is a mentor and role-model without peer, a man whose clear-eyed look into our past improved America’s future. Mirror to America will lift the spirit and steel our resolve for the work ahead.” — Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Senior Manager and Director Lazard LTD and author of Vernon Can Read

· “John Hope Franklin’s story is a triumphant one, at once a chronicle of America’s progress in civil rights over the past ninety years and a stirring reminder of the determination still needed to confront the country’s remaining barriers to racial equality. He has inspired his students for decades; now, with Mirror to America, he offers inspiration to us all.” — David N. Dinkins, 106th Mayor, City of New York

· “John Hope Franklin’s Mirror to America is a singular document, a great historian’s autobiography that will serve as an indispensable history of our times. Read and reflect, indeed!” — David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize winner, Julius Silver University Professor and Professor of History, NYU

· “In Search of the Promised Land is a unique and exciting addition to the literature on slavery and nineteenth-century history. It shows the complexity of slave life and challenges existing historical interpretations without completely overturning the studies of the last thirty years. . . . I love the story itself–what a story!” — James Fuller, University of Indianapolis

· “The book’s focus on the Thomas-Rapier family provides for one of the more vivid presentations of antebellum race relations I have seen. So much of scholarship on slave life tends to lose sight of individuals who had to confront life in a slave society. This book brings individuals back into the picture.” — Dickson D. Bruce, University of Irvine California

· “No one has yet explored the fugitives’ world and its meaning for the slave experience more deeply and with greater sophistication than [the authors]….[This book] greatly enhances our understanding of the system of slavery….” — Los Angeles Times Book Review

· “Using documentation from broadsheets to diaries, the authors provide incredible details of who the runaways were, their motivations and destinations, and how their efforts failed or succeeded. Franklin and Schweninger provide very personal accounts, giving names and personalities to an aspect of U.S. slavery that is seldom portrayed and refuting the mythology of the contented slave.” — Booklist