Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism

• In Event: Black Autobiographies and Blueprints for Justice: Voices of Power

Abstract

Hubert Henry Harrison’s enduring importance—as a journalist, activist, intellectual, and educator—lies in his innovation of radical solutions to radical injustices. In his day, much like ours, staggering luxury for the few coexisted with crushing poverty for the many. Racist white mob violence relentlessly terrorized African American communities. Both Church and state combined to elaborate a vast machinery of sexual policing, censorship, and repression against anything the government deemed ‘obscene.’ Imperial conquest and world wars wrought wanton destruction upon entire nations of people.
These conditions sparked a multiple political awakenings in the early 20th century and Hubert Harrison gave voice to them as a leading Black figure in cutting-edge struggles for socialism, free love, and the anti-war/anti-imperialist movement. Born in St. Croix USVI, Harrison’s move to New York City eventually set him up to catalyze the rise of Marcus Garvey and the largest international organization of Black people in modern history. Yet due to his fierce and fearless radicalism, Harrison has suffered a scandalous erasure from popular memory.
Because so many structural crises of the 20th century continue to haunt humanity into the 21st, Harrison’s deep and numerous insights into the politics of capitalism, racism, imperialism, and love remain as urgent as when he first articulated them. Therefore, by restoring and interpreting Harrison’s multi-dimensional radical political thought and its implications for economic, racial, and sexual liberation, Brian Kwoba's forthcoming book "Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism" highlights the startling relevance of Harrison’s visionary thinking to modern times.

Author

• Brian Kwoba, University of Memphis