Hubert Harrison, History's Unknown Black Radical

Somewhere on the road to becoming a Marxist during the 1970s, I heard about Hubert Harrison. A black radical from the early part of the century, his name was mentioned as an almost mythical character. Little was said about him, except that he was important and had been on the Harlem political stage. And then, almost like a ship disappearing into a fog bank, any further references vanished from view.

Trade unionist and scholar Jeff Perry has made a major contribution to activism and historical studies by introducing a new generation to the thinking and contributions of the West Indian-born black radical Hubert Harrison. A Hubert Harrison Reader is not only accessible to readers of different backgrounds, but it is comprehensive in displaying the various sides, as well as the political evolution, of this often forgotten character.

Harrison was, to borrow from Lenin, a publicist; a publicist not in the sense that this word is currently used, but more specifically, a revolutionary intellectual who wrote eye-opening exposures and rigorous political analysis. Harrison saw himself as a revolutionary, first and foremost devoted to the liberation of black people. At the same time, to characterize him as such gives only part of the story. Harrison existed at the intersection of revolutionary Marxism, revolutionary nationalism, and revolutionary Pan-Africanism. His political evolution was not linear in any sense, but reflected the state of class struggle in the early twentieth century United States, and the struggle against white supremacist national oppression under which black America suffered.

Harrison was a West Indian immigrant. This fact is very important for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that it reminds the reader of the critical inter-relationship of the West Indian and African-American experience. In particular, West Indian immigration directly influenced the culture and politics of black America in its fundamentals. Marcus Garvey, of course, is the most illustrative of political examples, but there were also characters such as Cyril Briggs (who was a major leader of the African Blood Brotherhood and, later, the Communist Party), Malcolm X (whose mother was Grenadian) and Minister Louis Farrakhan.

Harrison was a major activist in the pre-First World War Socialist Party; an advocate for the Industrial Workers of the World (the Wobblies); an independent editor; editor of Marcus Garvey's Negro World; and an independent Harlem-based radical. Yet what I found most striking about Harrison was that in many respects he was almost an ideological precursor and descendent (as paradoxical as that may sound) of Malcolm X -- descendent in the sense of being ideologically further down a road which Malcolm X himself seemed to be traveling. Harrison situated himself, along lines similar to William Monroe Trotter and Cyril Briggs, on the left side of the aisle, speaking the voice of black radicalism. Harrison was not only highly critical of the accomodationist path articulated by Booker T. Washington, he was equally critical of what he saw as the essentially timid liberal/ radical approach taken by individuals such as W. E. B. Dubois (at least during that period). Harrison was a fervent defender of the right of self-defense in the face of the lynchings which were common occurrences for black America, and also believed strongly in the need for an independent black political voice. He had little patience with a legalistic approach to black freedom.

At the same time, Harrison, through most of his political life, was attempting to articulate the relationship between race and class. While in the Socialist Party, Harrison polemicized against the white blindspot economism which was common, not only within the right wing of the Socialist Party, but also within sections of the Party*s left wing. His disappointment with what he saw as the white-race-first approach of many white radicals and white trade unionists led him to shift gears toward a "race first" and later "race consciousness" approach toward black liberation. It becomes clear in reading Harrison that he never abandoned the class struggle, nor his recognition of its centrality. Rather, he believed that far too many whites in the union movement and on the left had abandoned it in practice, and certainly in theory.