Harlem's Socrates: Race First in Jim Crow America
speech at the Paterson, New Jersey silk workers strike of 1913. For five months roughly 25,000 people took part in the strike. There Harrison gave a strong lecture against capitalism, making him stand out as the most radical as well as the only African American rally leader.17 In 1907, at the age of twenty-three, Harrison published his first piece, an editorial in the New York Times in the form of a literary critique.18 Suggesting his success as a journalist and social critic, Harrison later contributed to numerous periodicals including, but not limited to, The Nation, Boston Chronicle, Chicago Defender, Modern Quarterly, and Opportunity Magazine, as well as radical periodicals such as the Negro World, the Call, the Messenger, the Liberator, and the Truth Seeker. In addition, he edited and wrote in his own publications, the Voice and the Voice of the Negro. In print he addressed pertinent issues related to current events, criticisms, and ideology, from the U.S. invasion of Haiti, July 28, 1915, to “Socialism for the Negro.”19 Harrison often even wrote critiques on literature. Perry asserts Harrison may be the “first black book reviewer in history.”20 Harrison believed literary and artistic projects were reflective of the psychology of a society, “a mirror of social situations.”21 Philosopher Alain Locke supported a similar belief, demonstrated in his essential work on the Harlem Renaissance, The New Negro (1925), a compilation of artistic works showcasing the perceived boom in African American creativity.22 Harrison criticized the idea of a renaissance, a rebirth of African American artistic capability, instead promoting pride in the creative works of African Americans both past and present. Harrison, like Locke, used the arts to complement his understanding of civil society and specifically AfricanAmerican culture. Harrison’s first book, The Negro and the Nation (1917), a compilation of previously published articles and editorials, demonstrated Harrison’s
The University of Oregon McNair Research Journal [25]