From Eufaula to Everywhere.

Eliza Jane Franklin, who known publicly as The SouthernBelle Radical—is a historian, heritage conservationist, cultural curator and descendant advocate whose work examines Black memory, material culture, racial violence, and cultural landscapes across the American South and the broader African Diaspora. Through scholarship, preservation, public engagement, and creative practice, Franklin explores how people, places, objects, and landscapes shape collective memory and historical understanding while advancing more equitable and descendant-centered approaches to heritage stewardship. Born and raised in Eufaula, Alabama, Franklin's work is deeply rooted in place, memory, and lived experience. Her intellectual and professional journey has carried her from the historic landscapes of the American South to archives, museums, universities, and cultural institutions across the United States, Europe, West Africa, and Mexico. Today, her work bridges local histories and global conversations concerning cultural heritage, public memory, identity, displacement, migration, and historical justice. Franklin is the founder of the Black Heritage Society of Eufaula, Alabama, an organization dedicated to recovering, preserving, and interpreting Black and Indigenous histories embedded within the region's historic landscape. Through research, preservation initiatives, public programming, fundraising, and community engagement, she works to challenge dominant historical narratives and expand public understandings of the past. She is also the owner and steward of the Wellborn House, an 1837 Greek Revival residence listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as one of the oldest surviving antebellum homes in Eufaula. Franklin is leading efforts to transform the property into a museum and cultural center dedicated to interpreting Black and Indigenous histories that have historically been marginalized within traditional preservation narratives.

As the great-granddaughter of William "Willie Lee" Jenkins, a victim of racial terror lynching in Eufaula, Alabama, in 2026, the Black Heritage Society of Eufaula, AL partnered with Bryan Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) to erect a historical marker commemorating her great-grandfather and other victims of racial terror violence in Barbour County. Her prior work leading up to this influenced her to coin the term heritage lynching (2024), a conceptual framework that examines how systems of power suppress, manipulate, control, or erase cultural heritage, historical landscapes, material culture, and collective memory. Through this framework, Franklin calls attention to forms of structural and symbolic violence that often remain unexamined within preservation practice and other disciplines while advocating for more equitable and descendant-centered approaches to cultural stewardship.

Franklin's practice extends beyond traditional scholarship. As a cultural curator and creative practitioner, she develops exhibitions, interpretive experiences, films, digital humanities projects, and public programs that bring historical research into conversation with contemporary audiences. She is currently developing an exhibition exploring Black military service, citizenship, racial violence, and remembrance, using the story of her great-grandfather's lynching as a lens through which to examine broader questions of belonging, sacrifice, and historical memory.

Her creative work includes poetry, filmmaking, and public storytelling. Franklin served as a co-producer of Migrantes Desert v26, contributing independent historical research, original poetry, and production support. Her research has also examined the deaths of migrant women along the U.S.-Mexico border, reflecting a broader commitment to understanding how memory, place, displacement, violence, and resilience shape human experience across cultural and geographic boundaries. Franklin's commitment to public humanities extends beyond traditional academic settings. Through the UCLA Prison Education Program, she co-taught college-level courses at the Federal Correctional Complex in Victorville, California, engaging incarcerated students in critical conversations. This work reflects her broader commitment to expanding access to education and creating pathways for historically marginalized communities to engage with scholarship and cultural heritage. An accomplished public speaker, Franklin has presented her work nationally and internationally. Her scholarship has been presented in Amsterdam, where she shared research on memory, preservation, and cultural landscapes, and she has participated in heritage initiatives in Ghana focused on the African Diaspora and international cultural exchange. She has been invited to present at Black Portraitures 2026, a premier interdisciplinary forum convening artists, scholars, activists, and cultural practitioners. Franklin has also presented at the historic Wilshire Ebell in Los Angeles and was recognized by U.S. Senator Adam B. Schiff with a Certificate of Special Recognition for her participation in the 2026 Study of Women's History Symposium.

Franklin's preservation leadership extends beyond Alabama. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Monday Women's Club in Venice, California, supporting efforts to reclaim and preserve one of Los Angeles' most significant historic Black women's spaces. Her work has included collaborations with the Los Angeles Women's Landmark Project and contributions to preservation initiatives documented by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She previously served as a Curatorial Intern at the Getty Research Institute, where she worked with modern and contemporary collections, archives, and special collections materials, including the archives of pioneering Black architect Paul R. Williams. This work further informed her interdisciplinary approach to architecture, material culture, preservation, and cultural memory.A recipient of the 2019 UCLA Martin Luther King Jr. Oratorical Contest, Franklin has shared her scholarship, poetry, and public humanities work in academic, civic, and cultural forums throughout the United States and internationally.

Franklin is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in History at Auburn University. She holds a Master of Arts in Heritage Conservation from the University of Southern California, a Master of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Bachelor of Arts in African American Studies from UCLA.