Jeffrey B. Perry Blog
The Life of Hubert Harrison with Jeffrey B Perry on "This Is Revolution" podcast
Re 1619
In Theodore W. Allen, "The Invention of the White Race" vol. 1 "Racial Oppression and Social Control," p. 9, Allen writes --
Historians are cautioned to avoid the vice of "presentism," that is, the assignment of motivations for behavior to suit current vogues without proof that those motivations actually figured in the needs and feelings of the people of the historic period under consideration. One common example of this error is that of casually classing Negroes in colonial Anglo-America as "slaves" from the first mention in 1619 on, decades before there is any justification in the record for such a generalization.
Hubert Harrison's 1926 "World Problems of Race" Course in Harlem
From July 8 to September 9, 1926, Hubert Harrison delivered a special ten-week seminar course on The ISS' eleven-member executive council included: Willis N. Huggins, chairman; Williana Burroughs, secretary; E. Elliot Rawlins, treasurer; Richard B. Moore, director; and Louise Jackson, Mabel Byrd, F. Eugene Corbie, Peter D. Codrington, N. E. White, Grace P. Campbell, and Harrison. Discussion of this course can be found in Jeffrey B. Perry, "Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1926" (Columbia University Press). See HERE
Hubert Harrison's Pioneering Series for the New York City Board of Education on "Literary Lights of Yesterday and Today"
"The Novels and Stories of [Charles] Dickens" (October 28),
"[Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow—The Poet of the Hearthside" (November 4),
"[Rudyard] Kipling in Prose and Verse" (November 1),
"Our Own Mark Twain" (November 18),
"The Poetry of [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson" (November 25),
"Edgar Allan Poe, Poet and Prose Writer" (December 9),
"Thirty Years of H. G. Wells" (December 16).
In 1922 (ninety-nine years ago), Hubert Harrison was hired to deliver a regular series of Saturday evening lectures for the New York City Board of Education Lecture Bureau. The series on "Literary Lights of Yesterday and Today" at the 135th Street Public Library was "the first instance of any Negro attaining to that height." The board occasionally had Black lecturers, "but not a series." His schedule was:
"The Novels and Stories of [Charles] Dickens" (October 28),
"[Henry Wadsworth] Longfellow—The Poet of the Hearthside" (November 4),
"[Rudyard] Kipling in Prose and Verse" (November 1),
"Our Own Mark Twain" (November 18),
"The Poetry of [Alfred, Lord] Tennyson" (November 25),
"Edgar Allan Poe, Poet and Prose Writer" (December 9),
"Thirty Years of H. G. Wells" (December 16).
This information is from Jeffrey B. Perry, "Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927" (Columbia University Press). For more information on that volume see HERE