Senate Resolution No. 860

BY: Senator PARKER

COMMENDING Brooklyn College upon the occasion of
hosting John Hope Franklin Memorial Day on February
28, 2017

WHEREAS, It is the custom of this Legislative Body to pay tribute to
citizens of the United States whose lifework and civic endeavor served
to enhance the quality of life for their fellow men; and

WHEREAS, Attendant to such concern, and in full accord with its
long-standing traditions, this Legislative Body is justly proud to
commend Brooklyn College upon the occasion of hosting John Hope Franklin
Memorial Day on Tuesday, February 28, 2017, in the Woody Tanger
Auditorium, at the Brooklyn College Library in Brooklyn, New York; and

WHEREAS, This auspicious event will be celebrated with a myriad of
events including a Keynote Panel comprised of Paula Giddings, David
Levering Lewis and Kimberley Phillips-Boehm; a presentation entitled
"New Directions in African American History: Slavery and Abolition" by
Marisa J. Fuentes, Thavolia Glymph and Manisha Sinha; a conversation
with filmmaker Sam Pollard entitled "African American History and Film";
and "John Hope Franklin" a play performed by Brooklyn College Students;
as well as a traveling exhibition, "John Hope Franklin: Imprint of an
American Scholar" which profiles his life and work through archival
images, documents and texts; and

WHEREAS, Brooklyn College is fortunate to have the following experts
speak at the event; Marisa J. Fuentes is an Associate Professor of
History at Rutgers University; her first book, Dispossessed Lives:
Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive, offers historical perspectives
on urban Caribbean slavery in Bridgetown, Barbados, from the vantage
point of enslaved women "confined" within the fragments of traditional
archives; and

WHEREAS, Paula Giddings, the Elizabeth A. Woodson Professor of
Africana Studies at Smith College, is the author of the iconic When and
Where I Enter: The Impact on Black Women on Race and Sex in America, and
more recently, a biography of the anti-lynching campaigner, Ida B.
Wells, I0a: A Sword Among Lions, which won The Los Angeles Times Book
Prize for Biography and was a finalist for the National Book Critics
Circle award; and

WHEREAS, Thavolia Glymphy is an Associate Professor of History at
Duke University in the Departments of African & African American Studies
and History, and recently, the 2015 John Hope Franklin Visiting
Professor of American Legal History at Duke Law School; she is the
author of the prize-winning Out of the House of Bondage: The
Transformation of the Plantation Household, and co-editor of two volumes
of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861-1867; and

WHEREAS, David Levering Lewis is a master of comparative history at
New York University, whose prolific scholarship has ranged from French
history through the cultural politics of race to the civil rights
movement; his two-volume biography of the civil rights hero W.E.B

DuBois, W.E.B. DuBois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919, and W.E.B. Du
Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963,
garnered between them, two Pulitzer, one Bancroft, and one Parkman
prizes; and

WHEREAS, Sam Pollard is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker; he
directed, among numerous works, the documentary film, "Slavery by
Another Name" which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and was
broadcast on PBS; the film depicts the emergence of new forms of forced
labor in the post-Civil War; most recently, his celebrated Two Trains
Runnin' has offered a moving portrait of American race relations through
the prism of music; and

WHEREAS, Kimberley Phillips-Boehm is an award-winning historian and
author; she is the author of Alabama North: African-American Migrants,
Community, and Working-Class Activism in Cleveland, 1915-45, which won
the Richard L. Wentworth Prize in American History; her most recent
book, War! What is it Good For? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S.
Military from World War II to Iraq, earned the 2013 Philip Taft Labor
History Award, and was named a 2013 Choice Outstanding Academic Title;
and

WHEREAS, Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at
the University of Connecticut, and most recently, the author of The
Slaves Cause: A History of Abolition, which was featured as an "Editor's
Choice" in The New York Times Book Review; Politico named her first
book, The Counterrevolution of Slavery, one of the 10 best books on
slavery; and

WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to commend
individuals of outstanding character, who have shown initiative and
commitment toward constantly pursuing higher goals for themselves, and
acting as role models of leadership to be emulated by both peers and
young people; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
commend Brooklyn College upon the occasion of hosting John Hope Franklin
Memorial Day on February 28, 2017; and be it further

RESOLVED, That a copy of this Resolution, suitably engrossed, be
transmitted to Brooklyn College.