Stephanie S. Franklin

Stephanie S. Franklin is a doctoral candidate at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore School of Law. Stephanie is an attorney and President and CEO of the Franklin Law Group, P.C., a Maryland law firm whose work includes child welfare and civil and human rights litigation and advocacy. In October 2026, Governor Wes Moore appointed her as an Expert Attorney Member of the Maryland Reparations Commission.

Stephanie’s scholarship centers Black descendants of U.S. chattel slavery, examining the psychic, structural, and material consequences of slavery and its afterlives. Her research focuses on historic Black cemeteries and the descendants of those buried there, cultural heritage, racial dispossession, and descendant-led preservation.

Her theoretical and conceptual interests include Afropessimism, critical theories, psychoanalytic theory, structural violence, historical trauma, and reparative justice.

Stephanie’s broader scholarly interests include child and family welfare, particularly how racial and structural forces shape children’s and families’ experiences within this descendant population. Across these areas, she explores relationships among law, historical memory, structural power, and Black interiority.

Her methodological interests include qualitative and quantitative approaches to inquiry, oral history, and archival research.

Research and Scholarly Interests

• Consequences of U.S. chattel slavery: Psychic, structural, and material impacts of slavery and its afterlives.
• Theoretical frameworks: Afropessimism, critical theories, and psychoanalytic theory.
• Trauma and justice: Structural violence, historical trauma, and reparative justice.
• Child and family welfare for Black U.S. chattel slavery descendants.
• Sociolegal dynamics: Intersections of law, historical memory, structural power, and Black interiority.