Uncrowned Community Builders

Mollie Lee Parker was born on a farm not far from Brownsville, but near Ged, Tennessee, on January 27, 1878. Her father, Harry Parker, was a farmer; and her mother, Mariah, was a housewife. After graduating from the local school in Ged and the high school in Brownsville, she went to Roger Williams University, in Nashville, Tennessee, where she prepared to become an elementary school teacher. Upon graduation she returned to Brownsville, where she taught before moving on to Shelby, Bolivar County, Mississippi.

While at Roger Williams University she met Buck Colbert Franklin from the Indian Territory. They remained in touch after she returned to Brownsville and after he had transferred to Atlanta Baptist College (later Morehouse College) to be with his mentor, Professor John Hope, whom both had come to know and admire at Roger Williams. In 1903 Buck went to Mississippi to claim Mollie as his bride. They were married on April 1, 1903, in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and moved immediately to the Indian Territory.

Buck Franklin was teaching in the Territory and simultaneously taking law courses by correspondence and studying for the bar. He took and passed the bar examination in 1908, the year following statehood for Oklahoma. Meanwhile, resourceful as she was and with no immediate opportunity to teach, Mollie Franklin opened a millinery shop in Ardmore, Oklahoma, where they were living.

In 1911, with a daughter, Mozella, and a son, Buck Colbert, Jr., the couple moved to Rentiesville, a small, all-black village in McIntosh County, in Northeastern Oklahoma. There Buck practiced law, served as postmaster, and attempted to start a newspaper. Meanwhile, Mollie taught in the local school and delivered another daughter, Anne Harriet, and another son, John Hope. Later, a fifth child, Harding, was still born.

The Franklin's gradually realized that Rentiesville was not a viable community for their hopes and ambitions. They then made a decision to move on. In February, 1921, Buck went to Tulsa and opened a law practice with I. H. Spears and P.A. Chappelle. The older two children were away in boarding school, and Mollie and the two younger children were to move to Tulsa at the end of the school year. But those plans were dashed when, on May 30, 1921, a race riot erupted in Tulsa. Buck Colbert lost everything he had accumulated, including the home he had contracted to purchase, the cash reserves he had set aside to get the family settled, and what clothes he was not wearing. For more than a week, with so many casualties reported, the family did not know if he was alive.

Finally, Mollie received a letter indicating that aside from being detained for several days, he was unharmed. He had resumed his law practice in a tent and was quite busy bringing suit in behalf of his clients against the city, the state, and various insurance companies. He promised to visit as soon as there was a lull in the action. Obviously, there was no chance that the family could reunite any time in the immediate future. Consequently, Mollie resumed her teaching, this time in a hill country school out in the county. She rode to school on horseback each day, returning home to prepare dinner for the two younger children, help them with their home work, and prepare for the following day.

This was the routine that Mollie Franklin followed for four years. There were regular visits from Buck, but without him she assumed the day-to-day responsibilities of father as well as mother. Finally, Buck's law practice in Tulsa was sufficiently stable, if not lucrative, that he and Mollie could plan for her and the children to move to Tulsa. They finally made the move in December, 1925.

Mollie Franklin's career as a teacher came to a close in 1925. In Tulsa she had the opportunity to devote her attention to the home and to community affairs. She became active in her church, the women's club movement, and the Y.W.C.A.One thing that distressed her and moved her to action was the lack of any facility where young mothers could place their children when they went off to work. With the assistance and resources of the Negro women's clubs, she founded the first day-care center for Negro children in Tulsa. It flourished for more than a decade by which time other institutions were active in that area.

By 1935, hypertension had taken its toll on Mollie Franklin, and with inadequate medical resources available to her, she began a decline that seemed irreversible. On November 1,1936, she passed away, leaving her beloved husband, four children, three sisters, one brother, and a host of loyal friends and admirers to mourn her passing.