Every era has its philosophers, yet in the industrial age, few resonated outside the Eurocentric sphere of thought as profoundly as did Hubert Henry Harrison. The Black Socrates’ voice echoed through the streets of Harlem with clarity and conviction on the subjects of race, class, labor, socialism, critiques of religion and so-called leaders, colonialism, and current events of the time. Born in St. Croix in 1883 to working class parents, Harrison had experienced the effects of colonialism firsthand while living under Dutch colonial rule in the Caribbean. Later migrating to New York in 1900 following the death of his mother in 1899, Harrison sought improved living conditions through labor and self-education; Harlem became both his home and his classroom. Hubert was also an avid reader in a variety of subjects, a characteristic that would influence a lifetime of writing, publishing, education, and public speaking.

In the years after immigrating to Harlem, Harrison worked for the United States Postal Service as a postal clerk from 1907 until their dismissal in 1911, which came at the behest of the well known author and presidential advisor, Booker T. Washington, who reportedly urged their connections to fire Harrison from USPS following Harrison’s critique of Washington’s passive philosophy on the question of how to earn rights for Black Americans. This rivalry and subsequent firing preceded the transition to Harrison’s notable years as a journalist, editor, and public intellectual, where he earned the title of “Black Socrates” from powerful soapbox speeches on Harlem’s street corners. One highlight of Harrison’s timeline is their crossing of paths with Black nationalist and pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, whose influence remained in the coming generations of Black intellectual and social forces like Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party. Harrison worked as principal editor for Garvey’s newspaper, Negro World in the early 1920s before the pair faced ideological differences that led to a split; while Garvey championed Black nationalism and economic self-sufficiency as solutions to the oppression faced by Black Americans, Harrison advocated a socialist solution, attributing racial inequality to the structures of capitalism.

In addition to a diverse interest in social and academic causes, Harrison was radically committed to the labor movement. He was outspoken in his support for the One Big Union, the Industrial Workers of the World; Harrison gave militant speeches alongside William “Big Bill” Haywood, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and other towering labor figures of The Industrial Era. The intersection of race and class was a focus of Harrisons’ in step with the IWW’s stance against racial discrimination. Although it was a unique stance at the time, Harrison no less criticized the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which he served as an organizer for briefly in 1918, and other major unions for their lack of consciousness. Harrison once remarked, “’the black worker was opposed by the general run of white working men, who kept them out of their unions for the most part, and yet called him ‘scab’ for getting their jobs at the only time when those jobs were available to him.”

Harrison’s activism wasn’t limited to speeches and writings. His involvement in grassroots efforts made him a seminal figure in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance. The Negro-American Liberty Congress formed by Harrison was aimed at promoting equality and civil liberties for Black Americans – the autonomous Congress met and took steps to secure tangible victories against racial segregation and lynching, but were stifled by the Army’s Military Intelligence Bureau with the help of NAACP leader Joel Spingarn and W.E.B. Dubois, both who had ties to the military intelligence community. The Liberty Congress is considered by many to be a precursor to the March on Washington movements, synonymous with A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr., that would serve as a key piece of the massive social progress made decades later.

Hubert Harrison’s life was cut short by appendicitis in 1927 at the age of 44, a devastating loss for the Harlem community and the broader Black intellectual movement. He was a powerhouse of consciousness that can’t quite be restricted to a particular ideology or movement, although Harrison’s words and actions could still be considered radically progressive even today. The Black Socrates once remarked philosophically that, “The destiny of the American Negro lies in the future of America….While the racial heart of the American Negro will always beat in response to the call of the blood, he recognizes that he is part and parcel of the American civilization. It is here that he has been the burden-bearer; having borne the burden and heat of the day, he intends to receive the wages due him here for that work.”

Jeffrey B. Perry, an independent scholar and archivist who passed away in 2022, worked extensively to tell the amazing life story of Hubert Harrison. He wrote several books on Harrison and a Reader that accompanies them, including Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for Equality, 1918-1927 and Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918.