Black Socrates
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Transcript of Black Socrates
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BLACK SOCRATESHUBERT HARRISON AND THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION
Toni-Lee MaitlandAFS4935
December 3, 2013
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WHO WAS HUBERT HARRISON?
• Hubert Henry Harrison was and is “one of America’s greatest minds”
• Referred to by peers as the “Black Socrates”
• Father of Black Radicalism
• Influenced other black radical leaders including Marcus Garvey and A. Philip Randolph
• Editor of the Negro World publication
• Black leader of the Socialist Party in New York
• Leader of “New Negro” movement
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• Born on April 27, 1883 to Cecilia Elizabeth Haines; his father was Adolphus Harrison
• Born in Concordia, St. Croix in Danish West Indies
• Family was part of the working class; compulsory education in his childhood
• Excelled academically
EARLY LIFE
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• Moved to New York in 1900 after his mother’s death• Lived with his sister Mary in lower
Manhattan• Attended night school and worked
as an elevator operator during the day
• Broke away from Christianity around1901• Journal entry recounted this
experience• Became agnostic• “ refuse[d] to put faith in that which
does not rest on sufficient evidence.”
CONVERSION AND LIFE IN THE U.S.
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PROBLEM OF RELIGION• Harrison thought that Christianity was a
convenient way for whites to promote servility and a slave mentality amongst blacks• Christianity was used as tool in slavery to
control the slaves whom whites thought were “savages” and “heathens”
• Explore this aspect of Hubert Harrison’s intellectual contribution and its evolution throughout his rather short life• Contrasts with black people and their movements
being deeply rooted in the Christian Church
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WHY WAS HIS STORY NEGLECTED?
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RELEVANCE TODAY
“Show me a population that is deeply religious, and I will show you a servile population,
content with whips and chains, contumely and the gibbet, content to eat the bread of sorrow
and drink the waters of affliction.”- Hubert Harrison, “On a Certain Conservatism
in Negroes”
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SOURCE
• Jeffrey B. Perry, Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).