Robert Michael Franklin, 1997-2002

Robert Michael Franklin speaks from the podium, 1995.

Robert Michael Franklin delivers a sermon in Bishop Howard J. Dell's COGIC church, 1991.

Born in Chicago in 1954, Robert Michael Franklin acquired his secondary education at Morgan Park High School. He received his Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College, his Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. He also attended the University of Durham in England and has received honorary degrees from Bethune-Cookman University, Bates College and Swarthmore College. He has served as the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, and served as the program officer in the Human rights and Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation in New York. After serving as the sixth president of ITC, Franklin would go on to become the tenth president of Morehouse College. He has written three books: Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities, Another’s Day Journey: Black Churches Confronting the American Crisis, and Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African American Thought. He is married to Dr. Cheryl G. Franklin, a gynecologist, and is the father of three children.