Eliza Jane Franklin

SouthernBelle Radical and Researcher

Eliza Jane Franklin, the self-proclaimed SouthernBelle Radical, curates heritage, history, and change through transdisciplinary work that reimagines spaces of racial violence into sites of healing. Great-granddaughter of 1922 lynching victim Willie Lee Jenkins, she bridges personal legacy with collective justice as a memory practitioner and storyteller using ancestral memory in Eufaula, AL and abroad. Holding degrees from UCLA (BA, MA) and USC (MA), she is pursuing a History PhD at Auburn. Franklin coined “heritage lynching” as a framework for reclamation through descendant-led preservation. As Getty Curatorial Intern (2024-2025), she worked with architect Paul R. Williams’ archives.