John Hope Franklin, whose writings on the African-American experience changed the nation's understanding of its history, is one of two winners of a $1 million international award announced Wednesday by the Library of Congress.

The 2006 John W. Kluge Prize for the study of humanity honors lifetime achievement in humanities and social sciences, fields that aren't covered by the Nobel Prize. Franklin, 91, a retired professor at Duke University, will split the $1 million prize with Yu Ying-shih, a retired professor of Asian studies and history at Princeton University.

The two will receive the award Dec. 5 at the Library of Congress in Washington.

Franklin was recognized for his pioneering research on slavery and the struggle of blacks, which had previously been left out of American history books. His landmark survey of black history, "From Slavery to Freedom," was published in 1947, introducing hundreds of thousands of students to the African-American past. The influential book has been revised over and over and is still used today.

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said Wednesday that Franklin's work reaches beyond the world of academia.

"Few people exemplify this more brilliantly over a longer period of time than Dr. Franklin," Billington said in a telephone interview. "For more than 60 years, he's been publishing books that have broadened and redefined our understanding of the American past."

Franklin's scholarship helped create the field of African-American study and inspired other historians to join in the discoveries. His books never disguised the painful history of race in America. But, Billington added, "There's a sort of fundamental hopefulness about his work."

Reached at his home in Durham, Franklin said he was "flattered, honored, delighted and surprised" by the international honor.

The professor said he hoped he had succeeded in making people consider American history differently. "If you picked up a book about history 25 or 30 years ago, it would have been largely about white America," he said. "I have insisted that that's not the American history I know."

Franklin said he hadn't thought yet about what he would do with the $500,000. He donates regularly to a scholarship at Fisk University in memory of his late wife, Aurelia, who was a librarian. The two were classmates at the Nashville school in the 1930s, he said.

Franklin has been a key adviser on civil rights and race issues for decades. In 1953, he helped other scholars and lawyers prepare for Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court school desegregation case. In 1965, he marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. In 1997, then-President Bill Clinton appointed Franklin to lead a national conversation about race.

"I've done everything I could do to revise history so we could revise our lives," Franklin said. "We're on our way. We haven't gotten there yet. As long as I have breath I will work on that problem because I think that's the salvation of this country and of the world."

His autobiography, "Mirror to America," was published last year and has kept him on the road for months, he said. He'll travel to New York later this week, but mostly he enjoys staying home in Durham, where he tends his orchids.