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“Freeborn Men of Color: The Franck Brothers in Revolutionary North America, 1755-1820” - Valley Forge Park Alliance Speaker Series
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“Freeborn Men of Color: The Franck Brothers in Revolutionary North America, 1755-1820”
Presented by: Shirley L. Green, Ph.D. (Department of History, Bowling Green State University)
This talk examines the lives of William and Ben Franck, freeborn men of color, who used military service as a means to assert their manhood, gain standing in their community, and help to create free African American and African Canadian communities during the Revolutionary Era. It focuses on the lives and experiences of the Franck family from the 1750s, when Rufus Franck served in the French and Indian War, until the 1820s, when his younger son, Ben Franck, settled in Nova Scotia.
At each step of the story, this study analyzes the communities of free people of color with whom the Franck brothers interacted. The Franck brothers’ individual histories, closely analyzed, have the power to expand the prism through which we view early American people of color. This epic story traces the divergent paths of two brothers, caught up in revolutionary times.
More information about Dr. Shirley L. Green and the event can be found on the Valley Forge Park Alliance website.
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