Hubert Harrison, Black Public Intellectual

A New Biography about Hubert Harrison Offers Insight Into Black Public Intellectualism in America
by Felicia Pride

Debates have been circling lately regarding black leadership and public intellectualism. Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell recently wrote a piece for CNN that slams Tavis Smiley's inadequate critiques of Obama's treatment of race. She also gets at Smiley's "soul patrol"-which includes Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Dick Gregory-for their roles in his documentary "Stand." She feels Smiley and friends appropriate Martin Luther King's legacy and "implicitly claim that they, not Obama, are the authentic representatives of the political interests of African-Americans."

Spelman professor William Jelani Cobb, chimed in on what he called the "Obama Wars" among intellectuals. He wrote on his blog, "Conflict produces progress. Or, more specifically, the competitive market of ideas forces everyone to step up their thought game."

All this talk aligns with a growing interest in Hubert Harrison, a figure not typically studied in school or talked about in contemporary discourse. A new biography, "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918" (the first of two volumes) by Jeffrey B. Perry, a self-described "working class scholar," intends to rekindle the work, life, and politics of a forgotten thinker.

Read the Full Review @ The Root

Shared via AddThis

Melissa Harris-Lacewell Takes a "Stand"

Commentary: Don't Hold Obama to Race Agenda
by Melissa Harris-Lacewell

On May 24, TV One aired the latest installment of [Tavis} Smiley's accountability campaign: a two-hour documentary titled "Stand." Recycling Spike Lee's Million Man March film, "Get On the Bus," Smiley assembled a group of prominent black male public figures for a bus ride through the South.

Ostensibly, this bus trip would provide Smiley, professors Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson, Dick Gregory and others an opportunity to reflect on the meaningful upheavals in American society and politics in the summer of 2008. "Stand" was an enormous disappointment.

Its low production value, wandering narrative, flat history and self-important egoism did little to reveal the shortcomings of the Obama phenomenon. Instead, the piece exposed and embodied the contemporary crisis of the black public intellectual in the age of Obama.

Read the Full Essay @ CNN.com

***

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. She is the author of the award-winning book Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, and writes a daily blog titled The Kitchen Table.

Michelle Obama, Mom-in-Chief

Michelle Obama, Mom-in-Chief by Melissa Harris Lacewell

With Mother's Day approaching I want to think about Michelle Obama's assertion that her primary role as First Lady is "Mom-in-Chief."

Many progressive feminists were distressed with Michelle's assertion of motherhood as her primary role. They hoped she would seek a more aggressive policy agenda. After all Michelle Obama is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School. She spent her career as an effective advocate for urban communities in their fraught relationship with powerful institutions. She is smart, capable, and independent. She maintained her own career and ambitions throughout Barack's early political career and even during his election to the U.S. Senate.

Truth is, some of us who were in the orbit of the Obamas ten years ago believed Michelle, not Barack, was the real star of the couple. So while I don't think anyone expected her to commute to a 9-to-5 job in D.C; many hoped that she would take on an independent political role in the Obama administration.

Instead, Michelle has crafted a more traditional role for herself. She is highly visible, but she has taken on relatively safe issues like childhood literacy, advocacy for women and girls, and support of military families. Even her White House garden is framed more as an initiative for healthy eating and quality family meals than as a statement of commitment to local foods as an effort against global climate change.

Read Full Essay @ The Nation

Melissa Harris Lacewell on "The Handshake"

from The Nation

Obama Handshake and the Politics of Civility
by Melissa Harris Lacewell

Why is it that Barack Obama's handshakes create such a stir?

The Obamas fist pump congratulation after the North Carolina primary win sent Barack's candidacy into a bit of a racial tailspin, raising the specter of a secret terrorist plot apparently masterminded by dap-giving black folks and urban youth of all races. Now the genuinely pleasant greeting between President Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has some in the GOP concerned about the security of America's state secrets. Newt Gingrich seems to believe that the Obama-Chavez handshake signals to all the world that U.S. foreign policy now condones human rights violation, drug trafficking, and illegal border crossing.

I'm not completely sure how this transference of policy authority occurs through skin-on-skin contact between world leaders, but we might need to get some vaccine research going right away. Afterall, President Obama shook hands with Senator John McCain at least a half dozen times last year. Does this mean that Obama has also authorized a Republican domestic, policy agenda? (shudder)

Those who are alarmed about President Obama's easy, casual camaraderie with Chavez misunderstand the role of civility in public life. Barack Obama is, if nothing else, a civil and gracious political leader. In all honesty, he is a little too civil for my taste. I am cut from the sarcastic, snarky, blogger cloth. I hold grudges and prefer to punish my political foes with biting commentary whenever possible. Barack Obama appoints his adversaries to cabinet positions and asks those he disagrees with to pray at his inauguration. It is a core element of who he is. Even in Obama's pre-presidential book, The Audacity of Hope, he displays his brand of polite restraint. He condemns racism, but doesn't name racists. He blames conservative policies for creating our national mess, but doesn't attack conservatives. You don't have to like it, but that handshake was authentic Obama.

Read the Full Essay @

Remembering John Hope Franklin

from The Nation

Farewell John Hope Franklin
by Melissa Harris-Lacewell

[T]he great Historian John Hope Franklin passed away at the age of 94.

I did my doctoral work at Duke University and had the the opportunity to encounter Professor Franklin many times during my graduate training. Each time it was a privilege because John Hope Franklin was a superstar intellectual who managed to be utterly open and personally humble with students. He made us feel like partners, rather than subordinates, in academic inquiry.

In an age when black public intellectuals are rewarded for pop-culture peppered verbal dexterity and aggressive self-promotion; Dr. Franklin maintained a mode of inquiry which exposed injustice and dismantled inadequate arguments with soft-spoken dignity. His gentle manner sometimes led interlocutors to underestimate him, but it was not a mistake made more than once, because Franklin's razor sharp intellect and quick wit were memorable.

John Hope Franklin had deep personal and professional knowledge of America's vicious racial legacy. Franklin researched America's story of slavery and freedom in segregated archives. He was relegated to separate tables and irregular library hours so that white patrons would not be exposed to a literate black man researching Southern history. Franklin uncovered the vicious legacy of our racial past and engaged in decades of the struggle to change our racial present: from marching in Selma to endorsing Barack Obama.

Read the Full Essay @

***

from NPR's Tell Me More with Michel Martin

Remembrances
John Hope Franklin Dies, Leaves Guiding Light

Close friends and fellow scholars of Franklin — Duke University English Professor Karla Holloway, co-founder of the John Hope Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and International Studies, and New York University professor and author David Levering Lewis — discuss why both the passion and the work of John Hope Franklin will live on.

Listen HERE

Melissa Harris-Lacewell on Smalltown, America

from The Chicago Tribune

Obama's own small-town values
by Melissa Harris-Lacewell
September 8, 2008

Speakers at the Republican National Convention talked a lot about small-town values. They told America that a man from Chicago could not relate to the homegrown ethics of ordinary people. I know better. Barack Obama was my state senator. Right in the middle of that Senate district is my beloved small town, Hyde Park. There is no small town that knows more about sacrifice, honesty, hard work, community and patriotism.

We know about terrorism. In Hyde Park, I was embraced by dozens of neighbors on Sept. 11, 2001. We stood at Lake Michigan and turned our eyes toward our precious Chicago skyline. We kept vigil over our city, wondering if we would be targeted next.

We know how to be neighborly. Hyde Park is where a homeless man caught me when I stumbled while walking home in the snow eight months pregnant. He carried my bags 10 blocks. He wasn't rich, but he was righteous. Hyde Park is where we make room for each other to set up tents and barbecue in the parks on warm summer days. We parade down 53rd Street on Independence Day and together we listen to blues and jazz. We celebrate America with the flair and flavor of the best patriots.

We know about the energy crisis. In Hyde Park we walk to work, take Metra or catch the No. 6 bus downtown. We are city people, but we share our trees with the monk parakeets and feed the pigeons in the park.

We know about the power of faith. In Hyde Park we brave the bitter winds to gather in Rockefeller Chapel on Thanksgiving morning. We are welcomed by African drums; we are blessed by rabbis, priests and preachers; then we are sent home to our holiday feasts by the smell of burning sage offered by Indian tribal leaders.

We know about caring for our young people. In Hyde Park I watched a young woman turn down corporate job offers so that she could take over as principal of a failing public high school. With the help of parents, the commitment of students, and her own powerful determination, she is making Kenwood Academy one of the best schools in the city.

We know about diversity. Blacks and whites share a chess game in the park. Jews and Muslims work together to feed the hungry. Immigrants and citizens share the lakefront for a jog.

Read the Full Essay@

***

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University. She lived in Hyde Park and taught at the University of Chicago from 1999 to 2006. She misses it every day.