This Defender of Justice – Terry Franklin Guests on “Relatable with Stephanie Michele” Show

Partner Terry Franklin was a guest on “Relatable with Stephanie Michele,” a weekly YouTube livestream show spotlighting exceptional human encounters – the people who make them happen and the actions it takes to create them. On the episode, “This Defender of Justice,” Franklin shares the story of his fourth great-grandfather, John Sutton, a white farmer in Jacksonville, Florida, who owned and had a love relationship with his fourth great-grandmother, Lucy, a “mulatto slave.” John created a will in 1846 that emancipated Lucy and her eight children and her six grandchildren. Franklin retraces the path to his discovery of the will, and the unexpected will contest that threatened to keep his family enslaved. He explains how those discoveries helped him understand that he has a mission to “help bend the arc of history towards justice” by sharing the story of his family’s escape from slavery.

Watch the episode here.