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To contribute to the John P. Franklin Sr. Scholarship Fund, contact the Community Fund of Greater Chattanooga.
John Franklin Sr., former vice mayor and the first elected black official in Chattanooga, listens as Dr. Clark White talks during a tour held by the Chattanooga History Museum down M.L. King Boulevard on Tuesday.
David CookLate one night many, many years ago, the telephone rang inside the home of John and Eva Jim Franklin.
It would become one of the most important phone calls in the history of Hamilton County.
“It was a midnight call,” said the Rev. Paul McDaniel. “One that changed his life and the life of this city.”
It was the early ’70s. Jim Crow, dead legally, was still alive in many ways; never had a black man or woman been elected in Chattanooga.