Hubert Harrison’s wisdom on race, war, and equality

In 1911, Afro-Caribbean intellectual activist Hubert Harrison wrote in the New York Call that “politically the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea.”

This touchstone metaphor is both startling and profound. Applying it to current issues (employment, education, poverty, incarceration, interactions with police) demonstrates how far from true democracy and equality this country is. But it also strengthens those who seek a more just and equal society, affirming the importance of current struggles against mass incarceration and of the growing demand that #BlackLivesMatter.

In the same passage Harrison argues that true democracy and equality for “Negroes” implies “a revolution . . . startling even to think of.” That prescient analysis foreshadowed the civil rights struggle, which catalyzed the anti-war, labor, student, women’s, and other movements for social change. The civil rights struggle had such impact because its cause was just—and it hit directly at the white supremacy used to maintain ruling-class social control in the United States.