Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918–1927 (introduction)

Introduction

Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918–1927 follows the Columbia University Press publication of Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883–1918. This two-volume biography is based on more than thirty-nine years of research and extensive use of the Hubert H. Harrison Papers and diary, which this author preserved and inventoried before placing them with Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It is believed to be the first fulllife, multivolume biography of an Afro- Caribbean and only the fourth of an African American after those of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Langston Hughes.

St. Croix, Virgin Islands– born, Harlem- based Hubert Harrison (April 27, 1883– December 17, 1927) merits such attention. He was a brilliant, autodidactic, working- class, race- and class- conscious writer, orator, editor, educator, book reviewer, political activist, and radical internationalist.1 The historian Joel A. Rogers in World’s Great Men of Color described him as an “Intellectual Giant and Free-Lance Educator” who was “perhaps the foremost Aframerican intellect of his time” and “one of America’s greatest minds.” Rogers added that “no one worked more seriously and indefatigably to enlighten his fellow men” and that “none of the Aframerican leaders of his time had a saner and more effective program.” 2 The labor and civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, referring to a period when Harlem was considered an international “Negro Mecca” and the “center of radical black thought,” described him as “the father of Harlem radicalism.” 3 Richard B. Moore, a major activist and bibliophile who worked with the Socialist Party, African Blood Brotherhood, Communist Party, and movements for Caribbean independence and federation, described him as

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“above all” his contemporaries in his steady emphasis that “a vital aim” was “the liberation of the oppressed African and other colonial peoples.” 4 Harrison played unique, signal roles in the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the “New Negro”/Garvey movement) of his era. He was a major influence on the class radical Randolph, the race radical Marcus Garvey, and other militant “New Negroes” and “common people” in the period around World War I. W. A. Domingo, a socialist and the first editor of the Negro World, Garvey’s newspaper, explained that “Garvey like the rest of us [Randolph, Moore, Grace Campbell, Chandler Owen, Cyril Briggs and other militant ‘New Negroes’] followed Hubert Harrison.” The historian and Garvey expert Robert A. Hill refers to Harrison as “the New Negro ideological mentor.”5 Considered the most class conscious of the race radicals and the most race conscious of the class radicals in those years, Harrison is a key link in two great trends of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggle— the labor and civil rights trend associated with Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist trend associated with Garvey and Malcolm X. (King marched on Washington with Randolph at his side, and Malcolm’s father was a Garveyite preacher and his mother a reporter for Garvey’s Negro World, the newspaper for which Harrison had been principal editor.) Harrison’s lectures and writings were prolific and wide-ranging; he was a pioneering and unrivalled soapbox orator and brilliant editor; and he authored “the first . . . regular bookreview section known to Negro newspaperdom.”6 This second volume details the extraordinary last nine and one-half years of Harrison’s life, which were lived at the edge of poverty in a United States shaped by capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacy. He had been a leader in the struggle against those forces, but he had found that the Left and labor movements in the United States put the “white” race first, before class. In that context, he deemed it a priority to work at developing an enlightened race consciousness, racial solidarity, and radical internationalism among “Negro” people— especially the “common people” in struggles for “political equality,” against white supremacy, and for radical social change.

This volume is presented in roughly chronological order and has four broad sections: Part 1 (1918–1919) covers his pioneering, seminal, and long- ignored writings and work that gave direction to the militant “New Negro Movement” he had founded and led since 1916–1917. Part 2 (1920–1922) details his outstanding contributions and influence as a writer for and editor of the Negro World, discusses his differences with Marcus Garvey as well as his differences with Black socialists publishing The Emancipator, and makes clear that Harrison’s writings and literary influence (including his “Book Review” and “Poetry for the People” columns) contributed significantly to the climate leading up to Alain

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Locke’s 1925 publication The New Negro. Part 3 (1922–1924) focuses on his prolific and wide-ranging writing and speaking efforts as an independent “FreeLance Educator,” including his work as a public lecturer with the New York City Board of Education and as a regular columnist for the Boston Chronicle.

And Part 4 (1924–1927) examines his innovative and more broadly unitary efforts in his last years, including the founding of the International Colored Unity League and its organ The Voice of the Negro.

In telling the important story of his life between 1918 and 1927, this second volume seeks to contribute to the growing appreciation of Harrison and his work.

Drawing from his writings, talks, diary, scrapbooks (over forty of which remain), personal correspondence, and many other primary and secondary sources, it offers valuable insights on the period in which he lived, on prominent contemporaries and other key figures, and on a wide array of political and literary subjects as well as struggles that were waged.

Harrison’s most personally revealing document is his diary (which has recently been made available online). He first started it shortly after arriving in the United States, but that copy has not been located. When he restarted a new diary on September 18, 1907, at age twenty-four, he wrote down his thoughts on why he made that decision: It must surely be instructive to look back after long years on one’s past thoughts and deeds and form new estimates of ourselves and others. Seen from another perspective large things grow small, small ones large and the lives of relative importance are bound to change position. At any rate it must be instructive to compare the impression of the moment, laden as it may be with the bias of feeling and clouded by partisan or personal prejudice, with the more broad and impartial review which distance in time or space makes possible.

This may serve me in some sort as a history of myself twisted of two threads—what I do, and what I think. I hope I shall not make any conscious effort to impress upon it a character of any sort. So far as life is concerned as it comes so must it be set down. And if I omit any one phase of my life’s experience I do so for judicial reasons and not for the sake of seeming better in my own eyes when memory has ceased to testify.7

While Harrison wrote his diary for himself, there is no doubt from its content and occasional marginal comments that it was also written for those who would come after him to read and learn from. It seems clear that even as a young man he had a strong sense of self-worth, he was aware of the significance of the work

Figure 0.1. Hubert Harrison on restarting his diary, September 18, 1907. In his diary entry of September 18, 1907, Hubert Harrison, at age twenty- four, wrote, “It must surely be instructive to look back after long years on one’s past thoughts and deeds and form new estimates of ourselves and others. Seen from another perspective large things grow small, small ones large and the lives of relative importance are bound to change position. At any rate it must be instructive to compare the impression of the moment, laden as it may be with the bias of feeling and clouded by partisan or personal prejudice, with the more broad and impartial review which distance in time or space makes possible.” He added: “I hope I shall not make any conscious effort to impress upon it [the diary] a character of any sort. So far as life is concerned as it comes so must it be set down. And if I omit any one phase of my life’s experience I do so for judicial reasons and not for the sake of seeming better in my own eyes when memory has ceased to testify.” While Harrison wrote his diary for himself, there is no doubt that even as a young man he had a strong sense of self- worth, he was aware of the importance of the work he undertook, and he thought it important that a more complete record of his thinking and actions, as well as the period in which he lived, be recorded.

Source: Hubert H. Harrison Papers, Box 9, Folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library. See https://dlc .library.columbia .edu/catalog/cul:mpg4f4qt3x.

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Figure 0.2. Aida M. Harrison Richardson. The third daughter of Hubert Harrison and Irene Louise Horton Harrison was Aida M. Harrison Richardson ( July 4, 1912–June 28, 2001). In 1942 she married Virgil J. Richardson, a founder of the American Negro Theatre and a Tuskegee Airman. They had two children— Charles Richardson (March 2, 1944– February 20, 2017) and Ray Richardson (March 31, 1946– c. January 25, 1971). Aida and her brother William were instrumental in preserving the Hubert H. Harrison Papers until they were entrusted to Jeffrey B. Perry in the 1980s. Aida’s son Charles was similarly instrumental in helping (along with Perry) to place the papers at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 2005. Aida’s son Ray was a militant Black TV producer of Say Brother (1968–1970) on Boston Public Television (WGBH). Ray died of drowning under suspicious conditions in Mexico. Source: Charles Richardson.

he undertook, and he thought it important that a more complete record of his thinking and actions, as well as the period in which he lived, be recorded—“as it comes so must it be set down.” 8 This volume, reinforcing the value of Harrison’s approach, and in an effort to allow him to speak to current and future audiences, frequently cites his diary, papers, writings, and talks.

Figure 0.3. Joel A. Rogers, 1936. Joel Augustus Rogers (September 6, 1880— March 26, 1966) was born in Negril, Jamaica. After coming to the United States in 1906 he worked as a Pullman porter while pursuing a career as a domestic and international journalist and historian of people of African descent, biography, and “race relations.” In his World’s Great Men of Color Rogers described Harrison (following chapters on Booker T. Washington, William Monroe Trotter, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey) as an “Intellectual Giant and Free- Lance Educator” who was “perhaps the foremost Aframerican intellect of his time” and “one of America’s greatest minds.” Rogers added that “no one worked more seriously and indefatigably to enlighten his fellow men” and that “none of the Aframerican leaders of his time had a saner and more effective program.” Rogers, one of the most perceptive writers on Harrison’s life and a man who knew Harrison and his family well, insightfully added: “Harrison was not without his faults. The life of any leader, scrutinized detail for detail, does not look like the handsome image presented by ecstatic admirers after flaws have been removed and bits retouched. As the saying goes— ‘No man is a hero to his valet.’ ” In Harrison’s case, however, as Rogers emphasizes, this is no reason to “deny” his “essential greatness.” Source: Courtesy of Thabiti Asukile.

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In its approach it draws insight from Harrison’s “Meditation” entitled “A Soul in Search of Itself” (offered in the October 1920 Negro World), where he wrote, “No man was ever as good as his creed.” 9 In a similar vein, this volume’s approach also draws from comments by two of Harrison’s contemporaries— Eugene O’Neill and J. A. Rogers. O’Neill, a future recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, in a June 9, 1921, letter to Harrison, wrote, “The only propaganda that ever strikes home is the truth about the human soul, black or white. Intentional uplift . . . never amount[s] to a damn— especially as uplift. To portray a human being, that is all that counts.10 Rogers, a historian and one of the most perceptive writers on Harrison’s life, and a man who knew Harrison and his family well, offered: “Harrison was not without his faults. The life of any leader, scrutinized detail for detail, does not look like the handsome image presented by ecstatic admirers after flaws have been removed and bits retouched. As the saying goes—‘No man is a hero to his valet.’ ” In Harrison’s case, however, as Rogers emphasizes, this is no reason to “deny” his “essential greatness.”11 Finally, this volume keeps in mind words uttered at Harrison’s funeral by the extraordinary bibliophile of the Black experience Arturo Alfonso Schomburg—words that partly inspired the writing of this biography. Puerto Rico– born Schomburg, with great historical perspective and knowing how immensely popular and significant Harrison was in his day, stated simply, “He came ahead of his time.” With these words Schomburg correctly points to Hubert Harrison’s importance for current and future generations.12

“This long-awaited final volume guides us through the last decade of Harrison’s life, when he played a major role in the political upheavals and cultural transformations that shaped Harlem in the wake of the First World War. Thanks to Perry’s definitive portrait, it will no longer be possible to overlook the fierce and flinty polymath who was arguably the most brilliant Black radical intellectual of his generation.”

—B RENT H AYES E DWARDS , AUTHOR OF T HE P RACTICE OF D IASPORA : L ITERATURE , T RANSL ATION , AND THE R ISE OF B L ACK I NTERNATIONALISM

“Jeffrey B. Perry’s much-anticipated second volume on Hubert Harrison forces scholars to rethink the history of the Black radical tradition, the New Negro movement, and African American social movements. Through this magnificent exploration of Harrison’s life, Perry establishes Harrison’s centrality to early twentieth-century Black nationalist, pan-African, and socialist thought.”

—O USMANE P OWER -G REENE , AUTHOR OF A GAINST W IND S TRUGGLE A GAINST THE C OLONIZATION M OVEMENT

AND

T IDE : T HE A FRICAN A MERICAN

“This book offers an unparalleled explication of Harrison’s courageous journalism, perspicacious theoretical writings, electric oratory, wide-ranging political activity, persistent organization building, expansive mentorship and influence, and radical commitment to Black and working-class liberation. Equal in rigor, insight, and erudition to the first volume, this book completes the biography that the father of Harlem radicalism demands and deserves.”

—C HARISSE B URDEN -S TELLY ,

COAUTHOR OF

W. E. B. D U B OIS : A L IFE

IN

A MERICAN H ISTORY

“Perry’s magnificent achievement reaffirms that the life and work of Hubert Harrison stood at the center of the New Negro movement, the Harlem Renaissance, and American life and thought in general. This excellent book should broaden the prevailing conceptions of the history of ideas, sociology of knowledge, and intellectual history.”

—W ILSON J. M OSES ,

AUTHOR OF

T HOMAS J EFFERS ON : A M ODERN P ROMETHEUS

“The brilliant radical educator and activist Hubert Harrison has found in Jeffrey B. Perry a meticulous and indefatigable champion. Perry serves as both a perceptive guide to Harrison’s immense literary output and Harrison’s partner in setting the historical record straight. For scholars who want to understand this once-hidden parent of Harlem radicalism, Perry’s work is the essential starting point.”

—B RIAN J ONES , AUTHOR OF T HE T USKEGEE S TUDENT R EVOLT : B L ACK P OWER W ASHINGTON ’ S C AMPUS

ON

B OOKER T.

Jeffrey B. Perry is an independent scholar and archivist. He is the author of Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883–1918 (Columbia, 2008) and the editor of A Hubert Harrison Reader (2001), and he preserved and placed Harrison’s papers. He is also the literary executor for Theodore W. Allen, preserved and placed his papers, and edited and introduced the expanded 2012 edition of Allen’s two-volume The Invention of the White Race.

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IMAGE :

Hubert Harrison teaching, Harlem, September 9, 1926. Courtesy of the Hubert

H. Harrison Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.

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DESIGN :

Milenda Nan Ok Lee

Columbia University Press | New York | cup.columbia.edu

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.