Historian to have small role in N.C. film-Kevin Test

RALEIGH ; Historian John Hope Franklin will have a small role in the movie based on the book "Blood Done Signed My Name," which is about the public slaying of black man in Oxford in 1970.

Author Timothy Tyson, who wrote "Blood Done Signed My Name," said Tuesday that Franklin had just agreed to appear in the movie being filmed in Shelby, Gastonia and nearby areas.

The 93-year-old Franklin will play the role of an older man who helps a group of men load a mule on a truck. Tyson said he wanted Franklin in the movie "because of his dignity and his shining intelligence."

"The point is that there were people of that generation who worked mules but could have been a U.S. senator," Tyson said in a phone interview. "I think Dr. Franklin will convey that."

Tyson described the funny scene as one of his "favorite small stories" in the book.

The mule's owner has threatened to kill the people who borrowed the mule if they don't return it immediately. But the young men can't get the mule in a truck. Franklin's character shows them how to blindfold the mule, walk it in circles to confuse it, then load it.

Tyson's book explores both the killing of the 23-year-old man and the acquittal of the two white men charged in the case. The death and court acquittal provoked riots in Oxford, located just north of Durham.

The events personally affected Tyson, who was 10 years old at the time. His father, a progressive white minister in the Methodist church, was forced to resign.

Franklin lives in Durham and has chronicled civil rights history. He was part of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund team that helped develop the Brown v. Board of Education case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools.

He is professor emeritus at Duke University, while Tyson is a visiting professor at Duke's divinity school.

Franklin will film his role June 10 in Statesville. He did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.