Curated by John Gartrell, Director, Franklin Research Center, Duke University

John Hope Franklin was one of the best well-known and influential scholars of his era and broke countless professional barriers along the way. Franklin was also the definition of a public intellectual, continuously lending his scholarship and influence to causes beyond the walls of academia. This exhibition explores John Hope Franklin’s indelible imprint on the classroom, the institution, his public and private relationships, and his life’s work of utilizing history and knowledge to cultivate a better human society. The exhibit concludes with an itinerary of his profile as an international scholar.

A composite portrait of intellectual-biographical and political art of the twentieth century in two-segments bridging the NAACP and the Dalit [Untouchable] Movement in India to the Art of the Cultural Revolution, the exhibit captures the circulation of ideas and snap- shots of individuals and activists who reached out across boundaries and borders in their struggles, showcasing links between international and domestic political mobilizations from the 1920s to the 2010s.

Curated by Sucheta Mazumdar, Associate Professor, Department of History

Profiles of the long history of engagement of African American, Asian, and Asian Ameri- can activists, to introduce conversations linked in a common struggle for racial justice and international solidarity ranging from W. E. B. Du Bois and B. R. Ambedkar, Gandhi and King, to C. L. R. James and Grace Lee Boggs, Black Panthers and the SF Third World Stu- dent Strike, to the current mobilizations of AIDMAM reaching out to Angela Davis.

Curated by Sucheta Mazumdar

Of the many different types of art posters produced in China during the Cultural Revolution, an important genre was devoted to staging solidarity. In this selection of posters from Duke’s Rubenstein Collection, the art por- trays projects of building solidarity through combinations of workers, peas- ants, soldiers and students marching together, ethnic minorities in com- munity dances and wedding celebrations, and images of the whole world rising in solidarity with Mao looking on. The Cultural Revolution style of art with its signature use of radiating rays with its bold slogans in woodcut or painted Socialist Realist art style, used Maoism as inspiration for solidar- ity and was emulated by many activist groups worldwide, including the Black Panther movement.