[Marxism] Announcement -- Book Talk/Slide Presentation on Hubert Harrison--This Wednesday, March 18 at 7 PM--Brooklyn Public Library

["Jeffrey B. Perry" <perjef@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        On Wednesday, March 18, 2009, at 7 PM Jeffrey B. Perry will offer a  
talk and slide presentation on St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born "Hubert  
Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" at the Brooklyn  
Public Library, Flatbush Ave. and Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, 11238.
http://www.nyc-arts.org/events/2046/hubert-harrison-the-voice-of-harlem-radicalism

Background information on Hubert Harrison

  2 Paragraph Overview
       Hubert Harrison, (1883-1927) was an immensely skilled writer,  
orator, educator, critic, and political activist who, more than any  
other political leader of his era, combined class consciousness and  
anti-white-supremacist race consciousness into a coherent political  
radicalism. The St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born and Harlem-based  
Harrison profoundly influenced "New Negro" militants, including A.  
Philip Randolph and Marcus Garvey, and his synthesis of class and race  
issues is a key unifying link between the two great trends of the  
Black Liberation Movement: the labor- and civil-rights-based work of  
Martin Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist work associated  
with Malcolm X.

       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 the foremost Black  
organizer, agitator, and theoretician of the Socialist Party of New  
York, the founder of the "New Negro" movement, the editor of the  
“Negro World,” and the principal radical influence on the Garvey  
movement. A self-described, “radical internationalist,” he was also a  
highly praised journalist and critic (reportedly the first regular  
Black book reviewer), a postal labor unionist, a union organizer (with  
both the Hotel Workers and the Pullman Porters), an IWW supporter, a  
speaker at the 1913 Paterson strike, a freethinker and early proponent  
of birth control, a supporter of Black writers and artists, a leading  
community-based public intellectual, and a bibliophile who helped  
transform the 135th Street Public Library into an international center  
for research in Black culture (known today as the world-famous  
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture). His biography offers  
profound insights on race, class, religion, immigration, war,  
democracy, and social change in America.

------------------------------------------

5 Paragraph Overview
Hubert Harrison (1883-1927) is one of the truly important figures of  
early twentieth-century America. A brilliant writer, orator, educator,  
critic, and political activist, he was described by the historian Joel  
A. Rogers, in World’s Great Men of Color as “the foremost Afro- 
American intellect of his time.” Rodgers adds that “No one worked more  
seriously and indefatigably to enlighten” others and “none of the Afro- 
American leaders of his time had a saner and more effective program.”  
Labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph described Harrison as  
“the father of Harlem Radicalism.” Harrison’s friend and pallbearer,  
Arthur Schomburg, fully aware of his popularity eulogized to the  
thousands attending Harrison’s Harlem funeral that he was also “ahead  
of his time.”.
Born in St. Croix, Danish West Indies, in 1883, to a Bajan mother and  
a Crucian father, Harrison arrived in New York as a seventeen-year-old  
orphan in 1900. He made his mark in the United States by struggling  
against class and racial oppression, by helping to create a remarkably  
rich and vibrant intellectual life among African Americans, and by  
working for the enlightened development of the lives of “the common  
people.” He consistently emphasized the need for working class people  
to develop class consciousness; for “Negroes” to develop race  
consciousness, self-reliance, and self-respect; and for all those he  
reached to challenge white supremacy and develop modern, scientific,  
critical, and independent thought as a means toward liberation.
A self-described “radical internationalist,” Harrison was extremely  
well-versed in history and events in Africa, Asia, the Mideast, the  
Americas, and Europe. More than any other political leader of his era,  
he combined class consciousness and anti-white supremacist race  
consciousness in a coherent political radicalism. He opposed  
capitalism and maintained that white supremacy was central to  
capitalist rule in the United States. He emphasized that “politically,  
the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea”; that “as  
long as the Color Line exists, all the perfumed protestations of  
Democracy on the part of the white race” were “downright lying”; that  
“the cant of ‘Democracy’” was “intended as dust in the eyes of white  
voters”; and that true democracy and equality for “Negroes” implied “a  
revolution . . . startling even to think of.” Working from this  
theoretical framework, he was active with a wide variety of movements  
and organizations and played signal roles in the development of what  
were, up to that time, the largest class radical movement (socialism)  
and the largest race radical movement (the “New Negro”/Garvey  
movement) in U.S. history. His ideas on the centrality of the struggle  
against white supremacy anticipated the profound transformative power  
of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggles of the 1960s and his  
thoughts on “democracy in America” offer penetrating insights on the  
limitations and potential of America in the twenty-first century.
Harrison served as the foremost Black organizer, agitator, and  
theoretician in the Socialist Party of New York during its 1912  
heyday; he founded the first organization (the Liberty League) and the  
first newspaper (The Voice) of the militant, World War I-era “New  
Negro” movement; and he served as the editor of the Negro World and  
principal radical influence on the Garvey movement during its radical  
high point in 1920. His views on race and class profoundly influenced  
a generation of “New Negro” militants including the class radical A.  
Philip Randolph and the race radical Marcus Garvey. Considered more  
race conscious than Randolph and more class conscious than Garvey,  
Harrison is the key link in the ideological unity of the two great  
trends of the Black Liberation Movement--the labor and civil rights  
trend associated with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the race and  
nationalist trend associated with Malcolm X. (Randolph and Garvey  
were, respectively, the direct links to King marching on Washington,  
with Randolph at his side, and to Malcolm, whose parents were involved  
with the Garvey movement, speaking militantly and proudly on street  
corners in Harlem.)
Harrison was not only a political radical, however. Rogers described  
him as an “Intellectual Giant and Free-Lance Educator,” whose  
contributions were wide-ranging, innovative, and influential. He was  
an immensely skilled and popular orator and educator who spoke and/or  
read six languages; a highly praised journalist, critic, and book  
reviewer (reportedly the first regular Black book reviewer in  
history); a pioneer Black activist in the freethought and birth  
control movements; a bibliophile and library builder and popularizer  
who helped develop the 135th Street Public Library into what became  
known as the internationally famous Schomburg Center for Research in  
Black Culture; a pioneer Black lecturer for the New York City Board of  
Education and one of its foremost orators). His biography offers  
profound insights on race, class, religion, immigration, war,  
democracy, and social change in America.

About the author

Jeffrey B. Perry is an independent, working class scholar who was  
formally educated at Princeton, Harvard, Rutgers, and Columbia  
University. He was a long-time activist, elected union officer with  
Local 300, and editor for the National Postal Mail Handlers Union  
(div. of LIUNA, AFL-CIO, CTW). Dr. Perry preserved and inventoried the  
Hubert H. Harrison papers (now at Columbia University's Rare Book and  
Manuscript Library) and is the editor of "A Hubert Harrison  
Reader" (Wesleyan University Press, 2001).  He is also literary  
executor for Theodore W. Allen (author of "The Invention of the White  
Race") and edited and introduced Allen's "Class Struggle and the  
Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race."

-----------

Additional Information

Reviewer comments on the Hubert Harrison biography by Cornel West,  
Arnold Rampersad, David Levering Lewis, Manning Marable, Amiri Baraka,  
Winston James, Joyce Moore Turner, David Roediger, Komozi Woodard,  
Bill Fletcher Jr., Christopher Phelps, Gary Okihiro, Portia James,  
Peniel Joseph, and Gene Bruskin give indication of Harrison’s  
importance and the extraordinary interest in his life. These comments  
can be found at --
http://www.jeffreybperry.net/disc.htm


       A book description and an excerpt from the book’s introduction  
can be found at--
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13910-6/hubert-harrison
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-13910-6/hubert-harrison/excerpt

       An overview of Harrison’s life is available at BlackPast.org --
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=perspectives/hubert-harrison-voice-early-20th-century-harlem-radicalism


       A new review from "Inside Higher Ed" entitled "Rediscovering  
Hubert Harrison" can be found at--
http://www..insidehighered.com/views/2008/12/10/mclemee
  This review provides some background on the author and on the  
writing of the biography.

       Another piece, in “History News Network,” discusses “The  
Growing Interest In Hubert Harrison” and ties Harrison into such  
things as the Obama campaign and presidency, the economic crisis, and  
the war –
http://hnn.us/articles/59716.html

For radio listeners, Jeffrey B. Perry discusses Hubert Harrison with  
host Doug Henwood at
http://archive.wbai.org/files/mp3/090129_170001btnews.MP3

Also, Barnes and Noble Review has recently done a feature review of  
the biography available at --
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/bn-review/note.asp?note=21332263&cds2Pid=22471

Finally, the Book TV, CSPAN-2 program on Harrison with Jeffrey B.  
Perry, Komozi Woodard and Mark Naison can be viewed at
http://www.booktv.org/watch.aspx?ProgramId=FV-10134
www.jeffreybperry.net











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