John Hope Franklin, who died March 25 at the age of ninety-four, was a hero to me, a cherished mentor and colleague—but, above all, a person who exemplified what it means to marry scholarship to a passion for justice. John Hope (as he liked to be called) lived through the tragedy of racial oppression that ruled America for most of the twentieth century. Born in 1915, he witnessed the infamous Tulsa race riot of 1921, when arsonists burned down his father's law office.