Jonathan M. Hansen, Harvard University, Review of "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" Except from the December 2009 "Journal of American History" -- Click here
"In this book, Jeffrey B. Perry introduces readers to Hubert Harrison, the preeminent black social activist of early twentieth-century America. . . . As an activist, Harrison took no prisoners and suffered no fools; he was an unrelenting foe of hypocrisy in a society that saw itself as the beacon of liberty and fulfiller of dreams. Confronted by evidence to the contrary, then as now, Americans preferred to ignore it. It was, and apparently remains, far easier to turn a deaf ear to Harrison than to confront him. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Perry traces Harrison’s trajectory as a social activist from his arrival in New York City on September 21, 1900, through his rise as a leading Harlem-based critic and intellectual, his leadership in the local Social party, and his alienation from socialism, to his founding of the New Negro movement in 1915. . . . Harrison worked assiduously to alert black and white Americans to the material basis underlying labor and racial exploitation. . . . With this volume, Perry has provided an encyclopedia of resources and themes, which — more than illuminating the career of one neglected individual—cut to the heart of contradictions of race and class in twentieth century American life. . . . scholars will . . . confirm their debt to Perry’s magisterial piece of scholarship about an extraordinary man." -- Jonathan M. Hansen, Harvard University, Journal of American History, December 2009.
"In this book, Jeffrey B. Perry introduces readers to Hubert Harrison, the preeminent black social activist of early twentieth-century America. . . . As an activist, Harrison took no prisoners and suffered no fools; he was an unrelenting foe of hypocrisy in a society that saw itself as the beacon of liberty and fulfiller of dreams. Confronted by evidence to the contrary, then as now, Americans preferred to ignore it. It was, and apparently remains, far easier to turn a deaf ear to Harrison than to confront him. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Perry traces Harrison’s trajectory as a social activist from his arrival in New York City on September 21, 1900, through his rise as a leading Harlem-based critic and intellectual, his leadership in the local Social party, and his alienation from socialism, to his founding of the New Negro movement in 1915. . . . Harrison worked assiduously to alert black and white Americans to the material basis underlying labor and racial exploitation. . . . With this volume, Perry has provided an encyclopedia of resources and themes, which — more than illuminating the career of one neglected individual—cut to the heart of contradictions of race and class in twentieth century American life. . . . scholars will . . . confirm their debt to Perry’s magisterial piece of scholarship about an extraordinary man." -- Jonathan M. Hansen, Harvard University, Journal of American History, December 2009.