Jeffrey B. Perry

“Hubert Harrison, Theodore W. Allen,
and the Centrality of the Struggle Against White Supremacy"
by Jeffrey B. Perry (Introduction)
July 26, 2014
The Commons, Brooklyn, NY

Jeffrey B. Perry discusses the life and work of Hubert Harrison (“The Father of Harlem Radicalism"), the work of Theodore W. Allen (author of “The Invention of the White Race”), and the centrality of the struggle against white supremacy with host Bill DiFazio on WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City. The interview begins at 33:26 in the hour long November 28, 2015 "City Watch" show at HERE

HUBERT HARRISON
Slide Presentation/TalkOver 11,000 Views


“Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism”
Presentation by Jeffrey B. Perry
Dudley Public Library, Roxbury, Massachusetts,
February 15, 2014

The event was hosted by Mimi Jones and sponsored by Friends of the Dudley Library, Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia, and Massachusetts Global Action. Contact people included Mirna Lascano, Umang Kumar, and Charlie Welch in addition to Mimi Jones.

Video Prepared by Boston Neighborhood News TV’s “Around Town” -- Channel: Comcast 9 / RCN 15 Justin D. Shannahan, Production Manager, Ted Lewis, cameraman, and Laura Kerivan, copy editor for Boston Neighborhood Network Television. Nia Grace, Marketing and Promotions Manager of BNNTV, and Scott Mercer, of BNNTV, coordinated efforts to make the video available.

My primary historical writing has been on Hubert H. Harrison (1883-1927). St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born and Harlem-based, Harrison was a brilliant writer, orator, editor, educator, critic, and political activist who was described by the historian Joel A. Rogers as “the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time” and by the social activist A. Philip Randolph as “the father of Harlem radicalism.” Harrison was the major radical influence on both the class-conscious Randolph and the race-conscious Marcus Garvey as well as on a generation of “New Negro” activists and “common people” and he is the only person in United States history to play signal, leading roles in the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the New Negro/Garvey movement) of his era. He founded the World War I-era “New Negro Movement,” was reportedly “the first regular book reviewer in Negro newspaperdom,” and is a key ideological link in the two major trends of the civil rights/black liberation movement—the labor/civil rights trend associated with Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. and the race/nationalist trend associated with Garvey and Malcolm X.

I have previously edited "A Hubert Harrison Reader" (Wesleyan University Press) and authored "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" (Columbia University Press). Currently, I am currently writing the second volume of my two-volume Harrison biography and preparing “The Writings of Hubert Harrison” for placement on Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library website. Previously, I also preserved, indexed, and inventoried the Hubert H. Harrison Papers, which are now at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library with a 102-page Finding Aid available online.

Before I began work on Harrison, I was influenced toward serious study of matters of race and class in America through personal experiences and readings and through the work of an independent historian, Theodore W. Allen (1919-2005). Allen originated the “white skin privilege” concept in 1965 and among his many writings are "Class Struggle and the Origin of Racial Slavery: The Invention of the White Race" (1975), "The Invention of the White Race" (2 vols. 1994 and 1997), and critical reviews of Edmund S. Morgan’s "American Slavery, American Freedom" (1978) and David Roediger’s "The Wages of Whiteness" (2001). Allen argues that the "white race" was invented as a ruling class social control formation in response to labor solidarity as manifested in the latter, civil war, stages of Bacon's Rebellion (1676-77); that a system of racial privileges was deliberately instituted as a conscious ruling-class policy in order to define and establish the "white race"; and that the consequence was not only ruinous to the interests of the African American workers, but was also "disastrous" for “white” workers.

Currently, I am preserving, indexing, and inventorying the Theodore W. Allen Papers.

I have recently completed “Introductions,” back matter, internal study guides, and expanded indexes for both volumes of the new (November 20, 2012) Verso Books editions of The Invention of the White Race.

Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen were independent scholars who made important intellectual contributions during periods of domestic and international challenges to existing class and white-supremacist rule. They lived in daily contact with the “common people,” pursued the intellectual issues that concerned them with passion and great integrity, maintained networks for feedback and exchange of ideas, and felt that they were contributing towards a better society. Their intellectual independence contributed significantly to their ability to confront problems and issues directly. They were prime examples of the point made by the historian George W. Stocking Jr. in "Victorian Anthropology" that "Standing outside the normal process by which intellectual traditions are transmitted, the autodidact may embody the spirit of . . . [the] age in an unusually direct way.”

My most recent work on Harrison and Allen is the article “The Developing Conjuncture and Some Insights From Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen on the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy.” It is available by clicking the link in the top left corner.

This video – “’White Race’ Privileges, ‘The Invention of the White Race,’ and the Centrality of the Struggle Against White Supremacy -- Insights From the Work of Theodore W. Allen” is from an October 25, 2014, slide presentation/talk by Jeffrey B. Perry filmed by Enaa Doug Greene at the Center for Marxist Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents
for
"The Developing Conjuncture and Insights From
Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen
On the Centrality of the Fight Against White Supremacy"


By Jeffrey B. Perry
( For a link to the article CLICK HERE and go to top left)


Epigraph
Introduction
    Hubert Harrison
    Theodore W. Allen
    Harrison and Allen and the Centrality of the Struggle Against White-Supremacy
Some Class and Racial Aspects of The Conjuncture
    Deepening Economic Crisis
    U.S. Workers Faring Badly
    White Supremacist Shaping
    Wisconsin
    Millions are Suffering and Conditions are Worsening
Insights from Hubert Harrison
    Arrival in America, Contrast with St. Croix
    Socialist Party Writings
    “Southernism or Socialism – which?”
    The Socialist Party Puts [the “White”] Race First and Class After
   Class Consciousness, White Supremacy, and the "Duty to Champion the Cause of the Negro"
    On “The Touchstone” and the Two-Fold Character of Democracy in America
    Concentrated Race-Conscious Work in the Black Community
    Capitalist Imperialism and the Need to Break Down Exclusion Walls of White Workers
    The International Colored Unity League
    Struggle Against White Supremacy is Central
Insights from Theodore W. Allen
   Early Research and Writings and Pioneering Use of “White Skin Privilege” Concept
   White Blindspot
   Why No Socialism? . . . and The Main Retardant to Working    Class Consciousness
   The Role of White Supremacy in Three Previous Crises
   The Great Depression . . . and the White Supremacist Response
   Response to Four Arguments Against and Five “Artful Dodges”
   Early 1970s Writings and Strategy
   “The Invention of the White Race”
   Other Important Contributions in Writings on the Colonial Period
   Inventing the “White Race” and Fixing “a perpetual Brand upon Free Negros”
   Political Economic Aspects of the Invention of the “White Race”
   Racial Oppression and National Oppression
   “Racial Slavery” and “Slavery”
   Male Supremacy, Gender Oppression, and Laws Affecting the Family
   Slavery as Capitalism, Slaveholders as Capitalists, Enslaved as Proletarians
   Class-Conscious, Anti-White Supremacist Counter Narrative –    Comments on Jordan and Morgan
   Not Simply a Social Construct, But a Ruling Class Social    Control Formation . . . and Comments on Roediger
   The “White Race” and “White Race” Privilege
   On the Bifurcation of “Labor History” and “Black History” and on the “National Question”
   Later Writings . . . “Toward a Revolution in Labor History”
Strategy
The Struggle Ahead

 

Jeffrey B. Perry -- Slide Presentation/Talk on
The Invention of the White Race (Verso Books) by Theodore W. Allen
with special emphasis on Vol. II: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America.
Hosted by “The Hubert Harrison and Theodore W. Allen Society”
Filmed by Fred Nguyen on January 31, 2013
Brecht Forum, New York City
Over 311,000 VIEWS
.

Host Allen Ruff interview with guest Jeffrey B. Perry on A Public Affair, WORT 89.9 FM Madison, Wisconsin, July 10, 2014. . They discussed the life and work of Hubert Harrison (“The Father of Harlem Radicalism,” the work of Theodore W. Allen (author of “The Invention of the White Race”), and the centrality of the struggle against white supremacy. Listen HERE

For Various BlogTalk Radio Shows on Hubert Harrison -- CLICK HERE

Paintings of "Herman Melville (Benito Cereno)" and Hubert Harrison (from "Americas Spiritual Heroes") (by Adam Turl) about to be taken to their new home(s) in Springfield, Illinois with David Leitner. (oil, acrylic, cotton, ash and concrete on canvas).

Enslaved Black Laborers as Proletarians
Comments from
Hubert Harrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Theodore W. Allen
Excerpts from a Slide Presentation by Jeffrey B. Perry