When Chattanooga lost John Porter Franklin Sr. on the evening of June 21, 2018, it lost something that cities rarely replace — a steady, trusted, long-lived presence that had been woven into the fabric of daily life for nearly a century. He was 96 years old, and even at that age, his passing arrived as a quiet shock. Some people, it seems, become so much a part of a place that you stop imagining it without them.
Searching for the John P. Franklin obituary will lead you to lists of titles and dates. But those titles — funeral director, city commissioner, vice-mayor, Army veteran, teacher, coach — only gesture at the man behind them. John P. Franklin Sr. was the kind of person whose significance was felt more than announced, whose influence accumulated slowly and stuck. He did not seek the spotlight. He sought results. And over the course of a remarkable life, he found them.
This is his story, told with the respect and care it deserves.
Biographical Background
Born Into History: The Franklin Family Legacy
To understand John P. Franklin Sr., you first have to understand his father. G.W. Franklin established the Franklin Funeral Home in Chattanooga in 1894 — making him the first African American funeral director and embalmer in the city, at a time when horse-drawn hearses still moved through cobblestone streets and Black families had almost nowhere to turn for dignified funeral services. That founding act was not simply a business decision. It was a declaration that Black lives deserved the same dignity in death as anyone else.
John Sr. grew up inside that declaration. He attended East Fifth Street School and went on to graduate from Howard High School, one of Chattanooga’s historically significant institutions. Following his father’s example of excellence, he enrolled at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama — the storied center of Black academic and professional achievement — where he studied for two years before history intervened in the form of a world war.
After World War II, John Sr. joined his siblings — brother Ben Franklin and sister Mabel Franklin Taylor — in carrying the family business forward. By 1952, a broader partnership had formed, eventually evolving into what would become the John P. Franklin Funeral Home, co-founded with his son John P. Franklin Jr. and daughter Cheryl Franklin Key. Four generations. Over 130 years of unbroken community service. That continuity is its own kind of legacy.
Life at a Glance
A Life Lived in Service — Key Milestones
1894
Father G.W. Franklin founds Chattanooga’s first African American funeral home, setting the family’s course for generations.
1922
John Porter Franklin Sr. is born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, into a family already shaping its community.
1942
After two years at Tuskegee Institute, Franklin enlists in the U.S. Army and serves during World War II.
Post-1945
Returns to Chattanooga; joins the family funeral business and begins a career as a teacher and coach.
1952
Helps form the Franklin-Strickland-Reynolds partnership, expanding the family’s professional reach across the city.
1971
Elected to Chattanooga City Commission — becoming the city’s first elected Black official in the post-Jim Crow era.
Later
Serves as vice-mayor and helps lead the transition from a city commission structure to a more representative city council.
2018
Passes away peacefully in Chattanooga on June 21, 2018, at the age of 96 — mourned by a city that owed him more than it could easily say.
Military Service & Personal Contributions
From Tuskegee to the Battlefield — and Back Home Again
In 1942, John Franklin set aside his education and answered his country’s call. He served in the United States Army during World War II, joining the hundreds of thousands of Black servicemen who fought abroad for freedoms they were still being denied at home. That contradiction — serving a country that had not yet fully recognized your citizenship — shaped an entire generation of civil rights leaders. Franklin was among them, though he would do his most important work not through protest, but through presence.
When he returned to Chattanooga after the war, he was determined to build. His mother, who had given years of her own life to the Chattanooga school system as a teacher, had instilled in him a deep belief in education as a foundation for everything else. He pursued his own degree, became a teacher himself, and spent years coaching — roles that put him in relationship with young Chattanoogans long before he was ever their city commissioner.
He invested in the next generation before he ever asked it to invest in him. That kind of credibility cannot be manufactured. It can only be earned.
Civic Leadership & Community Impact
A Historic First — and Everything That Followed
In 1971, six years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act and in a Southern city still carrying the weight of its segregated past, John P. Franklin Sr. was elected to the Chattanooga City Commission. He was the city’s first elected Black official in the era following Jim Crow — a milestone that arrived not through confrontation or celebrity, but through the slow accumulation of trust that only decades of genuine community service can build.
He did not govern dramatically. He governed consistently. As commissioner and later as vice-mayor, he helped steer Chattanooga through one of its most consequential institutional transitions: the move from a limited city commission to a broader, more representative city council — a structural change that would open the door to a more inclusive local government.
For years, he worked alongside mayors, commissioners, and civic partners, always with the same measured approach: listen carefully, act deliberately, and let the work speak for itself.
“Chattanooga’s relatively quiet transition through the tumultuous era of civil rights toward becoming a more open and inclusive community was made possible by the stately presence, wise guidance, and steady hand of John Franklin Sr. He was a quiet and heroic leader through difficult times. The modern city we enjoy today owes him a great debt.”
— Ron Littlefield, Former Mayor of Chattanooga
Career & Vocation
A Funeral Director Who Made Grief More Bearable
Running parallel to his civic career was the lifelong vocation that defined him most personally: serving as a licensed funeral director at the John P. Franklin Funeral Home. As a member of the National Funeral Directors and Morticians Association, Franklin brought professional rigor to work that was also deeply human.
For the Black families of Chattanooga — who had relied on the Franklin name since his father first opened the funeral home doors in 1894 — John Sr. represented continuity, dignity, and care during life’s most devastating moments. He understood that how a community buries its dead says something about how it values its living. He took that responsibility seriously every single day.
In his own words, he described working alongside his children to carry on the family’s commitment as a true honor — not simply a profession, but a purpose. That purpose stretched across more than a century, and it endures today in the hands of the generations he raised and mentored.
Surviving Family
Those Who Carry His Love Forward
John P. Franklin Sr. leaves behind a family that is itself a testament to a life well-lived — a son and daughter who continue his professional mission, grandchildren who grew up in the shadow of his example, and a great-granddaughter who will one day hear the stories of who he was and what he meant to a city.
Children
- John P. Franklin Jr.
- Cheryl (Charles) Franklin Key
Grandchildren
- Danielle (Charles) Desarzant
- Jakali McClendon
- Calyn Key
- Chandler Key
Great-Granddaughter
Gabrielle Desarzant
Extended Family
Nephew Michael McFarland, along with a host of beloved relatives and cherished friends across Chattanooga and beyond.
John P. Franklin Memorial Services
Saying Goodbye — Memorial & Funeral Details
The family of John P. Franklin Sr. opened their doors — literally — so that Chattanooga could say goodbye. Three separate services were held over several days, each reflecting a different facet of the man: the professional, the civic, the faithful.
Lying in State
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
12:00 noon – 8:30 p.m.
John P. Franklin Funeral Home Chapel
1101 Dodds Avenue, Chattanooga, TN
Public Viewing & Memorial
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Public Viewing: 11:00 a.m.
Memorial Service: 6:00 p.m.
Olivet Baptist Church, Chattanooga, TN
Funeral Mass
Friday, June 29, 2018 · 11:00 a.m.
Christ Episcopal Church · 663 Douglas Street, Chattanooga, TN 37403
Honor His Memory With a Gift
In lieu of flowers, the Franklin family requests contributions to causes that reflect his deepest values — education, literacy, and investment in Chattanooga’s future.
John P. Franklin Sr. Scholarship Fundc/o Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga
1270 Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37402
Howard School Literacy Fund2500 South Market Street
Chattanooga, TN 37408
John P. Franklin Golf ClassicHyksos Foundation
P.O. Box 864, Hixson, TN 37343
John P. Franklin Funeral Home1101 Dodds Avenue
Chattanooga, TN 37404
(423) 622-9995
There are people whose absence changes the shape of a place. John P. Franklin Sr. was one of them. He carried a family name already heavy with history and made it mean more. He fought for his country overseas, then came home and fought — quietly, steadily, without drama — for the dignity of his neighbors. He lived almost a full century, and Chattanooga, for all its complicated history, is measurably better for every year of it. May he rest in the peace he so faithfully helped build for others.
John Porter Franklin Sr. · 1922 – June 21, 2018 · Chattanooga, Tennessee
