The St. Croix–born, Harlem-based Hubert Harrison (1883–1927) was
a brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic, and activist who
combined class consciousness and anti-white-supremacist race
consciousness into a potent political radicalism. Harrison’s ideas
profoundly influenced “New Negro” militants, including A. Philip
Randolph and Marcus Garvey, and his work is a key link in the two
great strands of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggle: the
labor- and civil-rights movement associated with Randolph and Martin
Luther King Jr. and the race and nationalist movement associated with
Garvey and Malcolm X.
In this second
volume of his acclaimed biography, Jeffrey B. Perry traces the final
decade of Harrison’s life, from 1918 to 1927. Perry details
Harrison’s literary and political activities, foregrounding his
efforts against white supremacy and for racial consciousness and
unity in struggles for equality and radical social change. The book
explores Harrison’s role in the militant New Negro Movement and the
International Colored Unity League, as well as his prolific work as a
writer, educator, and editor of the New Negro and the Negro World.
Perry examines Harrison’s interactions with major figures such as
Garvey, Randolph, J. A. Rogers, Arthur Schomburg, and other prominent
individuals and organizations as he agitated, educated, and organized
for democracy and equality from a race-conscious, radical
internationalist perspective. This magisterial biography demonstrates
how Harrison’s life and work continue to offer profound insights on
race, class, religion, immigration, war, democracy, and social change
in America.