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Hubert Harrison: Pioneering Black Activist in the Freethought

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Hubert Harrison: Pioneering Black Activist in the Freethought THE AFRO-CARIBBEAN Hubert HARLEM ACTIVIST AND BIBLIOPHILE RICHARD Harrison B. MOORE DESCRIBED HUBERT HARRISON AS Pioneering African American Activist in the Freethought Movement “THE FIRST GREAT ATHEIST OF OUR RACE, A FEARLESS THINKER AND A COURAGEOUS FIGHTER.” By JEFFREY B. PERRY INTRODUCTION and birth-control were often opposed by Catholics and not console myself as so many have done with young Karl Marx who, at that time, was similarly devel- St. Croix, Virgin Islands-born, Harlem-based Hubert Protestants alike.” Rogers added that “at his open-air the husks of a superior braggadocio. What had oping critical talents and a worldview. Marx pithily stat- Henry Harrison (1883-1927) was a brilliant class- and meetings, he and his friends were obliged to defend gone was the authenticity of the Bible, that which ed “criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism.” race-ConsCious, writer, orator, editor, eduCator, and themselves physically from mobs at times, never hesi- I had been taught was the word of God. So [Marx also added “Religious distress is at the same time book reviewer and an extraordinary political activist tating to speak no matter how great the hostility of his when my Bible went my God went also. the expression of real distress and the protest against real and radiCal internationalist. He was also a pioneering opponents.” Then, as he gathered himself together, he also devel- distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, African American activist in the Freethought Movement. oped a new philosophy of life. He wrote: the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of an unspiritual situation. It is the opium of the people.] Historian Joel A. Rogers in World’s Great Men of Color de- BREAK FROM CHRISTIANITY Time, the great healer, closed the wound and I be- Hubert Harrison was born on Estate Concordia, St. scribed him as an “Intellectual Giant” who was “perhaps gan again to live—internally. But I now had a new Croix, Danish West Indies to a laboring-class Barbadian the foremost Aframerican intellect of his time.” Labor and belief—Agnosticism. I said belief: what I did mean EARLY FREETHOUGHT-RELATED WRITINGS mother and a formerly enslaved Crucian father. He grew civil rights activist A. Philip Randolph, referring to a pe- was philosophy of life, point-of-observation, atti- AND ACTIVITIES up in poverty, was intellectually self-motivated, had ac- riod when Harlem was considered the “center of radical tude-toward-things. You must have one you know, While he struggled inwardly, Hubert also began to ex- cess to some books in the library of St. John’s Episcopal black thought,” called him “the father of Harlem radical- or you will cease to live. tend his views outward by writing letters, participating in ism.” The Afro-Caribbean Harlem activist and bibliophile working-class African American intellectual circles, and He then added: by an excellent teacher. After the death of his mother, - Hubert travelled to New York in 1900 as a 17-year-old Now I am an Agnostic; not a dogmatic disbeliever Harrison played unique, orphan, lived with his sister leading roles in the largest on the west side of Manhattan, me the keenest pleasure to engage in dialectic philosophic anarchist John Turner who, on October 23, class radical movement (social- In a lecture he delivered years later, started working, and began to 1903, was arrested in New York and imprisoned on Ellis attend high school. of Agnostic without knowing what it means. If I ism) and the largest race rad- Harrison explained, as quoted in Island in preparation for deportation under provisions of ical movement (the “New Ne- - am to explain myself . I would say that I am (in the Immigration Act of March 3, 1903. That law provided gro”/Garvey movement) of his the February 11, 1911 Truth Seeker, tual transformation occurred my mental attitude) such an Agnostic as [Thomas] for the exclusion of “anarchists, or persons who believe Huxley was and my principles are the same. that Paine “popularized the arguments around 1901 when he broke in, or advocate, the overthrow by force or violence of the on the class radical Randolph, from his previously held reli- government of the United States, or of all government, against Christianity and brought them on the race radical Marcus Gar- gious views. His “Diary” entry would include works by him on his recommended read- - vey, and on activists and “com- down to the level of democracy.” of May 20, 1908, describes in ing lists. Huxley, known as Charles Darwin’s “bulldog,” cials.” While Turner did not believe in, or advocate, the mon people.” In 1917 he found- great detail the tremendous in- was a leading exponent of evolu- use of force or violence, he also tellectual turmoil he underwent - tionary theory and had popular- In this period Harrison increasingly The Voice) of the circa 1901 as he “divorced” himself “from orthodox and - ernment and he was being pros- militant “New Negro Movement,” which was an import- institutional Christianity” and became an “Agnostic.” came in contact with the organized ecuted and deported for what he ant preCursor to the Civil Rights and BlaCk Liberation This break “was not effected at once,” it came in stages.” “agnosticism” was “not a creed Freethought Movement— a rationalist, did not believe in. struggles of the 1960s. Harrison was the most class In the course of his study he read Thomas Paine’s Age but a method” by which, “in Turner was defended on Free- conscious of the race radicals and the most race con- of Reason written in 1794 during the second year of the matters of intellect,” you “follow anti-religious movement with a thought and free speech grounds French Revolution. Paine’s arguments were, at the time, sCious of the Class radiCals of his era and he is a key your reason as far as it will take strong base in New York and a weekly by the Truth Seeker, by the Man- link in the two great trends of the Civil Rights/Black “irresistible.” you without regard to any other hattan Liberal Club, and by the Liberation struggle—the labor and civil rights trend as- In a lecture he delivered years later, Harrison ex- consideration” and “do not pre- newspaper, the Truth Seeker, founded Free Speech League (a predeces- plained, as quoted in the February 11, 1911 Truth Seek- sociated with Randolph and Martin Luther King Jr. and tend that conclusions are certain in 1873 by D. M. Bennett. sor of the American Civil Liber- the race and nationalist trend associated with Garvey er,- which are not demonstrated or ties Union) and these groups or- and Malcolm X. tianity and brought them down to the level of democra- demonstrable.” This enabled Huxley, who “refuse[d] to Harrison’s pioneering work in and around the Free- - York. After a December 5 New York Times editorial de- thought Movement, though less well-known, was of simi- aspect of . militant unbelief and democratic dissent,” idence,” to “look the universe in the faCe,” to believe in fended the government’s right “to exclude” Turner and larly seminal importance and it was at times undertaken two characteristics that were “truly representative” of “the sanctity of human nature,” and to develop “a deep - at great personal risk. The Montserrat-born activist, writ- “the thought of our time.” Interestingly, Harrison would sense of . responsibility” for his actions. In his “Diary” lished in the Times of December 15. He maintained that er, and freethinker Hodge Kirnon, in the January 1928 encourage “militant unbelief” and “democratic dissent” Harrison concluded that he would never “be anything “in this age of so-called free thought and free speech” it Truth Seeker wrote, “Harrison was one of the ablest ex- for the remainder of his life. but an honest Agnostic” because, as he wrote, “I prefer . was a “duty” to “aid the weaker side when that side seems The actual process of breaking with religion brought . to go to the grave with my eyes open.” . to be in the right.” He added that “to deport a man foremost Negro in the cause of Freethought. His scintil- with it emotional pain and Hubert used this as a spur to Hubert’s grappling with a “philosophy-of-life” and his for exercising the right of free speech when the exercise of lating wit, irony, profundity and wide range of knowledge system building. In his “Diary” he explained: decision to put humanity at the center of his world-view that right limits none of the natural rights of any one else, attracted thousands of persons during his many years I was not one of those who did not care: I suf- took its toll. He did not have the rituals, institutions, or was unjust, tyrannical, and therefore undemocratic.” of outdoor and indoor work.” Historian Rogers discussed fered. Oh, how my poor wounded soul cried out Another Freethought-related Harrison letter appeared Harrison’s writings in “such radical and anti-religious pe- in agony! I saw the whole fabric of thought and Painful as it was, Hubert’s break from religion made pos- in the September 25, 1909, New York Times and dis- riodicals as ‘The Call,’ ‘The Truth-Seeker’, and the ‘Mod- feeling crumbling at its very foundations, and in sible a healthy, critical approach to all other matters. The cussed Moncure D. Conway, who was one of the most ern Quarterly’” and described how “his views on religion step had a certain logic as had been noted in 1844 by a popular authors of the Freethought movement and a bi- ographer of Paine.
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