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Jeffrey B. Perry Blog

Harlem Activist Hodge Kirnon on the Radicalism of Hubert Harrison and “The Voice” [c. 1917-1919]

Harlem Activist Hodge Kirnon
on the Radicalism of
Hubert Harrison and “The Voice” [c. 1917-1919]

[“The Voice”] “really crystallized the radicalism of the Negro in New York and its environs.” It exerted “a tremendous influence in inspiring the people with the highest racial ideals and aspirations” and inculcated “into every Negro a sense of race pride and determination” that was “without parallel in the history of the race.”

Harrison (who lived on Harlem’s most densely populated block) “lived with and amongst his people; not on the fringes of their social life” and he “taught the masses” and “drew much of his inspiration from them.” Harrison was “the first Negro whose radicalism was comprehensive enough to include racial¬ism, politics, theological criticism, sociology and education in a thorough-going and scientific manner.”

For more on Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 click here, here and here

The Montserrat-born Hodge Kirnon was a freethinker, editor of the The Promoter, and a race- and class-conscious community activist
For a striking photo of Hodge Kirnon CLICK HERE

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