Responses to "Show Me the Franklins"

“Dr. Amanda Kemp’s Show Me the Franklins! is an amazing, extremely moving evocation of a central aspect of American and world history whose most troubling points are usually glossed over and only a few highlights retained in collective memory. Historians may remember that, in his last year of his long life, Benjamin Franklin was President of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, but give short shrift to his many years as a slaveholder before that. In a wonderful, convincing exercise of historical imagination thoroughly grounded in genuine historical sources, Dr. Kemp sensitively explores not only disparate memories of Franklin, but also, more crucially, the tragic effects of slavery upon both slaves and slaveholders. Hers is a successful effort to explore the tragedy from many perspectives; even the perspective of author and narrator is called into question in this brilliant drama. The ultimate result is that rare work of literature on slavery that fully affirms the humanity of everyone drawn into the entangling web of an evil system. It leaves the audience profoundly stirred by the moral struggles of a not-so-distant past.” Stephen W. Angell, Leatherock Professor of Quaker Studies Earlham School of Religion
“Kemp’s play forces us to consider whose history is privileged and whose is erased by historians’ standard practices…a healing ritual…” Kathleen Coll, Stanford University
“This piece approached complex issues from many sides at once. Amanda Kemp’s writing and the superb acting simultaneously stirred my intellect, my heart and my imagination. Niyonu D. Spann, former Dean of Pendle Hill, A Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation