My morning with Ben Franklin

For me to play a bigger part in the completing of a more perfect union in this country, I need a more complete understanding of its history. At least that's what came to my mind this morning.

I woke up at 5 a.m., 45 minutes ahead of my alarm. I decided to go in search of Benjamin Franklin, and I found him right where we last talked -- in the pages of "First American."

We picked up our conversation with Franklin about to make his second trip to England. It's the middle of the 18th Century and the Colonials -- with Franklin's evident hand -- have taken the position that the colonies must have a political structure that allows them to work in concert for the common good. The "good" at this point namely is to ward off danger, particularly from the French-"Indian" collaboration.

The Colonials still are loyal British subjects and Franklin actually travels to England to get the official support of the homeland.

I decided to review a few pages before picking up from my book-marked spot. Two passages jumped out at me, maybe because I have been immersed in guiding the Tri-State Defender's African-American History Month Section.

In the first, Franklin is having dinner with Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Morris and one of Morris' associates. Morris remarks that he rather likes the thought pattern of Sancho Panza in "Don Quixote." Panza is offered a government and responds by asking that it be a government of Africans because he could sell them as slaves if he could not agree with them.

Morris' associate asks Franklin why he stays on the side of the Quakers. "Had you not better sell them?"

Franklin responded, "The Governor has not yet blacked them enough." H. W. Brands -- author of "First American" -- recounts Franklin's later amplification that the governor had labored "hard to blacken the (Pennsylvania) Assembly (of which Franklin was a part) in all his messages, but they wiped off his colouring as fast as he laid it on, and placed it in return thick upon his own face."

Several pages later, there is this sentence: The Franklin party -- consisting of Franklin, William (his son), and two slaves: Peter and King -- arrived in London in late July 1757."

I started to wonder about Peter and King and longed to hear their overlapping stories.

Franklin's view of slavery evolved, and to understand the end point, I have to know the beginning and middle. And to understand America and where we are, I have to understand Franklin. That's a large part of why I am reading this book and having this conversation with him.

To be continued...