My Life and an Era by John Hope Franklin

Author:John Hope Franklin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 1997-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

7

ARDMORE

In the fall of 1906 we sold the farm and all our livestock, except the horse and buggy, and moved to Ardmore, to a home we bought in the northwest part of the city. This house consisted of four rooms, with a kitchen and dining room, and was set upon a lot 100 by 150 feet. It was a beautiful lot, as level as the floors in the house. But the house was not modern. None of the homes were modern then, except for those of the few rich families living in that part of town, among them Lee Cruce (the banker and later governor), Ben Colbert, and Westheimer. On our lot was a fine young orchard with fruit trees of several varieties and a few rows of berries. In the northeast corner there was a small barn, large enough to accommodate the horse and buggy and crib.

When Mozella was born, there began in me the fear of insecurity, which stayed with me, off and on, throughout my life. This was one of the things that hastened my abandonment of rural life. Too, I knew I would not be able to prepare and maintain the proper environment in a rural area for the growth and development of my family or opportunities for travel, communication, fellowship, and education. I had the faith to believe that, while my education was limited and not formal, with the aid of rigid self-help, by the right contacts and absorption, I might yet be able to fortify myself and family against haphazard living.

On November 12, 1907, 1 left by train for Purcell to take the examination to practice law in the new state of Oklahoma. The federal judge, J. T. Dickerson, was holding court. He appointed a committee of practicing attorneys to examine me and other applicants, a score or more. The test was very rigid and lasted all day (the examination was oral) until midnight. Many or most of the applicants were graduates of well-recognized law schools, such as Ann Arbor. But the result showed that mine was the second-highest grade, as I later learned from the clerk, O. M. Campbell, when he mailed my certificate. On August 8, 1908, 1 was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, which meant, of course, that I could practice law in any state court in Oklahoma. It was then only a question of form, and my certificates to practice law in all federal courts of the different districts were secured in due time.1

At Ardmore, I connected myself with a church for the first time in my life, a C.M.E. church in a small, poorly painted building on an eastern spur of the Santa Fe Railroad. The C.M.E. was my mother’s and all her people’s church. It was the weakest of all the denominations in town. My friends and my father’s kin thought I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, considering the fact that there was not a member of the church who had enough business to need a lawyer.

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