The second volume on the life and works of Hubert Harrison, the Harlem-based activist, organizer and journalist, is about to be released. Biographer Jeff Perry has spent almost four decades researching Harrison, who he described as “a socialist who worked closely with Marcus Garvey and was the first to write about the ‘New Negro’ in the first quarter of the 20th century.” Harrison deserves to be in the pantheon of formative Black political thinkers and doers, but his principled politics, unsparing journalistic critiques, and refusal to be bought earned him few boosters.
