The FunTimes Exchange podcast is pleased to feature an enlightening discussion with the Honorable Oliver St. Clair Franklin, CBE, who served for 28 years as Honorary British Consul in Philadelphia and had a truly remarkable career engaging in diplomacy, business, cultural advocacy, and engagement worldwide. In the episode, we discuss Franklin's multi-dimensional role in international relations, and his unique take on how African diplomats, and their individual roles for their countries, had a substantial impact on the American Civil Rights movement - an important but often under-acknowledged component of Black freedom history.

Franklin details how the diplomats sought to use their international status to counter segregated laws, thereby creating diplomatic pressure to spur civil rights progress, an aspect largely ignored in scholarship. Franklin also reflects on being a founding member of the National Black Film Festival, his efforts to preserve African-American literature through a donation of material now at Brown University, and the City Fellows Program that provided opportunities for Black professionals to enter the global finance industry.

Franklin shares personal stories, accumulated knowledge, and wisdom from a life of service, to develop a vision of cultural resilience, global action, and strategic thinking that provides meaningful and authoritative evidence and understanding, and useful inspiration.