he was. It was Frank whom Rudyard Kipling had in mind when he wrote the poem, “If”:
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too.3
Frank exuded a self-confidence that was always tinged with humility and not arrogance. He was the sixth of seven children born to a maid and a sharecropper in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression, yet he told me it wasn’t until he was sitting in a freshman sociology class at Livingstone College that he learned that he was poor. This, as he explained to me, was because of the sense of pride and self-worth instilled in him by his family and his teachers. Neither his humble roots nor his race were seen by Frank as detriments to life and ministry; in fact, they were understood to be gifts which could be offered to the broader community. Thus, Frank could say with Saint Paul: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want” (Phil 4:12).
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