NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Philosophy and the Black Experience SPRING 2021 VOLUME 20 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE EDITOR Dwayne Tunstall SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND INFORMATION FOOTNOTES TO HISTORY Hubert Harrison (1883–1927) ARTICLE John H. McClendon III COVID-19, Capitalism, and Death: How and Why Black Lives Matter BOOK REVIEWS A Welcome Leftward Turn to Marxism: Ferguson on the Philosophy of African American Studies Reviewed by John H. McClendon III The Disposable Man—Grotesque White Fantasies of Black Male Death in George Yancy’s Backlash Reviewed by Adebayo Oluwayomi AUTHOR BIOS VOLUME 20 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2021 © 2021 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and the Black Experience DWAYNE TUNSTALL, EDITOR VOLUME 20 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2021 experience broadly construed. The editors welcome FROM THE EDITOR submissions written from any philosophical tradition, as long as they make a contribution to philosophy and the Dwayne Tunstall black experience broadly construed. The editors especially GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY welcome submissions dealing with philosophical issues and problems in African American and Africana philosophy. INTRODUCTION All article submissions should be between ten and twenty This issue begins with our “Footnotes to History” section. pages (double spaced) in length, and book reviews should Stephen Ferguson and I shine our spotlight on the Black be between fve and seven pages (double spaced) in “proletarian intellectual” Hubert Harrison. Harrison was length. All submissions must follow the APA guidelines for a brilliant and infuential writer, orator, educator, critic, gender-neutral language and The Chicago Manual of Style philosophical materialist, and political activist in Harlem formatting. All submissions should be accompanied by a during the early decades of the twentieth century. short biography of the author. Please send submissions Unfortunately, Harrison’s materialist philosophy has not electronically to [email protected]. been the subject of any studies by African American philosophers. DEADLINES Fall issues: May 1 Stephen Ferguson and I are proud to present an unpublished Spring issues: December 1 talk, “COVID-19, Capitalism, and Death: How and Why Black Lives Matter,” by John H. McClendon III. McClendon was EDITOR one of the keynote speakers at the Fourteenth African Dwayne Tunstall, [email protected] American Intellectual Thought Symposium at Fresno State University. We would like to thank Professor Thomas Ellis, FORMATTING GUIDELINES the coordinator of the Africana Studies Program, and Ms. • The APA Newsletters adhere to The Chicago Manual of Chelsea Beeson for her hard work behind the scenes in Style. organizing the symposium. A special appreciation goes to Dr. Malik Simba, the visionary founder and creator of • Use as little formatting as possible. Details like page this long-standing and vital thought-provoking series of numbers, headers, footers, and columns will be added conversations. later. Use tabs instead of multiple spaces for indenting. Use italics instead of underlining. Use an “em dash” In “A Welcome Leftward Turn to Marxism: Ferguson on (—) instead of a double hyphen (--). the Philosophy of African American Studies,” John H. McClendon III provides us with a review-essay of Stephen • Use endnotes instead of footnotes. Examples of proper C. Ferguson II’s 2015 book Philosophy of African American endnote style: Studies: Nothing Left of Blackness. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard Lastly, we have a review of George Yancy’s Backlash: What University Press, 1971), 90. Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America by Adebayo Oluwayomi. See Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?” Nos 34 (2000): 31–55. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND INFORMATION FOOTNOTES TO HISTORY Hubert Harrison (1883–1927) The APA Newsletter on Philosophy and the Black Experience is published by the committee on the status of Black Born April 27, 1883, in Concordia, Danish West Indies (now philosophers. Authors are encouraged to submit original St. Croix, Virgin Islands), Hubert H. Harrison was a brilliant articles and book reviews on any topic in philosophy and infuential writer, orator, educator, critic, philosophical that makes a contribution to philosophy and the black materialist, and political activist in Harlem during the early APA NEWSLETTER | PHILOSOPHY AND THE BLACK EXPERIENCE decades of the twentieth century. He played unique, signal REFERENCES roles in what were the largest class radical movement “Hubert H. Harrison Papers, 1893–1927: Finding Aid,” Rare (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. https:// New Negro/Garvey movement) of his era. Labor and civil dlc.library.columbia.edu/hubert_h_harrison (Last accessed rights activist A. Philip Randolph described him as “the February 8, 2021). father of Harlem radicalism,” and historian Joel A. Rogers considered him “the foremost Afro-American intellect of Harrison, Hubert H. The Negro and the Nation. New York: his time” and “one of America’s greatest minds.” Following Cosmo-Advocate Publishing Company, 1917. his death on December 17, 1927, due to complications of an appendectomy, Harrison’s important contributions to Harrison, Hubert H. “Lincoln and Liberty: Fact Versus intellectual and radical thought have been neglected. Fiction – A Lecture,” 1911–1914. Born to parents of Afro-Caribbean descent, Harrison Harrison, Hubert H. A Hubert Harrison Reader. Edited by emigrated to the United States in 1900 as a seventeen-year- Jefrey Babcock Perry. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan old orphan and lived in New York City. He completed his University Press, 2001. secondary training at DeWitt High School, graduating with honors as the top student in Latin and history. Financially Harrison, Hubert H. When Africa Awakes: The “Inside Story” unable to attend college, he passed the Civil Service of the Stirrings and Strivings of the New Negro in the Western examination and worked in the postal service. World (New York: Porro Press, 1920), New Expanded Edition, edited with notes and a new introduction by Jefrey B. Perry While working at the post ofce, he continued his studies (New York: Diasporic Africa Press, 2015). independently and extensively read sociology, literature, history, economics, and philosophy. His philosophical Horne, Gerald. “Black Thinkers at Sea: Ferdinand Smith and study comprised reading Herbert Spencer, Henry Thomas the Decline of African American Proletarian Intellectuals.” Buckle, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, Souls 4, no. 2 (2002): 38–50. Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Karl Marx, and V. I. Lenin. But it was his studies of Marx and Lenin that inspired him to join Jackson, John G. Hubert Henry Harrison: The Black Socrates. the Socialist Party where he worked closely with Elizabeth Cranford, New Jersey: American Atheist Press, 1987. Gurley Flynn, Bill Haywood, and Morris Hilquitt. Harrison’s articles in the International Socialist Review, The Call, The Moore, Richard B. “Hubert Henry Harrison (1883–1927).” In Modern Quarterly, and The Truth Seeker represented some Dictionary of American Negro Biography. Edited by Rayford of the earliest eforts at a materialist analysis of the African W. Logan and Michael R. Winston (New York: W. W. Norton, American experience. [See, for example, his brilliant 1982), 292-93. critique of the mythology surrounding Abraham Lincoln as the “Great Emancipator.”] Perry, Jefrey Babcock. Hubert Harrison The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883–1918. New York: Columbia University The racist character of the Socialist Party led Harrison to the Press 2011. “Race First” doctrine. He founded his own Black Nationalist organization, Liberty League, and was editor of its journal, Perry, Jefrey Babcock. Hubert Harrison: The Struggle for The Voice of the Negro. He later became editor of The Equality, 1918–1927. New York: Columbia University Press, Negro World, the organ of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro 2021. Improvement Association. Rogers, Joel A. “Hubert Harrison: Intellectual Giant and Harrison was most known not for his publishing and Free-Lance Educator.” In Joel A. Rogers, World’s Great Men writing, though he was extensively engaged in that arena, of Color, Vol. 2. Edited by John Henrik Clarke (New York: but for his tremendous oratory. Harrison’s major infuence Collier Books, 1972), 432–42. stemmed from his street orations during lunch hour at Wall Street, in Madison Square, and especially evenings, frst at West 96th Street of Broadway and later on Lenox Avenue. A pioneer of the soapbox tradition in Harlem, crowds would ARTICLE listen for long periods to the broad range of lecture topics he would present and his penetrating analysis. His ability to COVID-19, Capitalism, and Death: How make complex subjects clear and simple, and the power of his logic and presentation mark him as the quintessential and Why Black Lives Matter proletarian intellectual of his day. John H. McClendon III Despite his lack of formal degrees and training, The Truth MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY Seeker compared his intellectual ability with such thinkers as Mark Twain, Luther Burbank, Thomas Huxley, Moncure P. Conway, and Ernest Haeckel. INTRODUCTION Our topic, “The Coronavirus and the Virus of Racism: Race, Class, and Gender,” is not only the subject matter of our discourse.1 More importantly, it essentially frames PAGE 2 SPRING 2021 | VOLUME