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Jeffrey B. Perry Blog

3 Hubert Harrison Discussions This Week--Tuesday at the Harlem Y, Friday and Saturday on BookTV-CSPAN2

Three Hubert Harrison events are scheduled this week--
1. June 30, 2009, Tuesday, 7:00 PM, Book Talk/Slide Presentation on "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918." Harlem YMCA, 180 W. 135th St., NYC.
2. July 3, 2009, Friday, 6:15 PM, Book TV--CSPAN2 television broadcast of January 21, 2009, Barnes & Noble (82nd St., NY), discussion of "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of  Read More 
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Hubert Harrison Resonates Deeply Among the People

Events over the past few days have demonstrated how very deeply Hubert Harrison resonates among the people.
Yesterday afternoon Hugh Hamilton, a wonderfully knowledgeable and personable radio show host for WBAI's (99.5 FM in New York) "Talkback!," opened the airwaves for a full-hour to a discussion of Hubert Harrison. By last evening this website had received a record number of new visitor hits, most, presumably, coming from Hugh's politically-astute listener audience.
Following Hugh Hamilton and WBAI, Donna Fleming, the dedicated and community-oriented Coordinator of the Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center of the Brooklyn Public Library, hosted a slide presentation/book talk on Hubert Harrison at the African American Heritage Center in the Macon Library of the Brooklyn Public Library System in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. The meeting room was packed and it still saw a steady flow of new arrivals. The event extended beyond the library's closing and many discussions continued in the lobby and then on the street (Lewis Avenue) in front of the library for well-over an hour afterwards.
Last Friday, in Chicago, Brian Jones, a New York City school teacher and a bright and well-informed political activist, hosted a Harrison slide presentation/talk, along with the International Socialist Organization (ISO), as a featured session at the Socialism 2009 Conference. Again, the meeting room was fully packed beyond seating capacity, Q and A was lively and ran over, discussions continued well past the session and on through the weekend, and a new appreciation for Hubert Harrison's importance was commented on by a growing number of the committed activists in attendance.
After all three of the mentioned events people came forward offering new ways to help spread the word about Hubert Harrison, his ideas, and the issues he and others struggled for.
Hubert Harrison is out there, he resonates deeply among the people, and his long period of "unremembrance" (to borrow from Winston James) is ending.
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Felicia Pride, "The Clashing of Black Public Intellectuals, Nothing New There" from "The Root," June 11, 2009

This Felicia Pride article, subsequently circulated by "An Anxious Black Woman" and Mark Anthony Neal, discusses "Debates . . . circling lately regarding black leadership and public intellectualism . . . Melissa Harris-Lacewell . . . Tavis Smiley . . . [Barack] Obama's treatment of race . . . Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Dick Gregory, . . . Martin Luther King . . . William Jelani Cobb . . . [and] a growing interest in Hubert Harrison, a figure not typically studied in school or talked about in contemporary discourse." The article reviews "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" and headlines "A New Biography about Hubert Harrison Offers Insight into Black Public Intellectualism in America." Ms. Pride adds "with this current evaluation of black public intellectuals and leaders, Harrison's life, which ended in 1927, can offer unique insight. . . .
By examining the mind, talent, varied interests, achievements, challenges, contradictions, and complexities of a voice that's been overshadowed, 'Hubert Harrison' shines light on a notable figure in American history." Read More 
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Hubert Harrison quoted in June 9, 2009 article "U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT TARGETS AFRICAN AMERICANS"

Hubert Harrison is quoted in the linked article "Global Breaking News" article by I.K. Cush, entitled "U.S. LAW ENFORCEMENT TARGETS AFRICAN AMERICANS."
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Hubert Harrison on Book Reviewing from Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

Hubert Harrison was reportedly the first regular Black book reviewer in history. About seventy of his reviews have been located. He offers some insights here in a "Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism" link. Harrison's original article was on the front page of the "New York Times Saturday Review of Books" in 1907.
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