"For many years cognoscenti in all fields of African diaspora studies have foreseen and rejoiced at the coming of this brilliant masterpiece, in which Jeffrey B. Perry has reconstructed the early career of Hubert Harrison (1883–1927), the radical socialist and prophet of the New Negro Movement. . . . Perry's archival brilliance . . . illuminates not only the life of his subject but discloses much about black Manhattan before the Harlem Renaissance. He has dug up so much about Harrison that only the most remarkable serendipity is likely to reveal anything new about this brilliant . . . intellectual. . . . Thanks to Perry, we now have a somewhat proximate record of Harrison's strivings, offering evidence that . . . self-taught geniuses are capable of analyzing the complex forces that determine global historical events and control the realities of their own existence."
Professor Wilson Jeremiah Moses is Ferree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University.
Professor Wilson Jeremiah Moses is Ferree Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University.