Abram Lincoln Harris
Encyclopedia
Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. (January 17, 1899 – November 6, 1963) was an American economist
, academic
, anthropologist
and a social critic of blacks in the United States. Considered by many as the first African American to achieve prominence in the field of economics, Harris was also known for his heavy influence on black
radical and neo-conservative thought in the United States. As an economist, Harris is most famous for his 1931 collaboration with political scientist Sterling Spero to produce a study on African American labor history titled The Black Worker and his 1936 work The Negro as Capitalist, in which he criticized black businessmen for not promoting interracial trade. He headed the economics department at Howard University
from 1936 to 1945 and taught at the University of Chicago
from then until his death. As a social critic, Harris took an active radical stance on racial relations by examining historical black involvement in the workplace, and suggested that African Americans needed to take more action in race relations.
. His father was a butcher at a meat shop, and his mother was a schoolteacher. The family that ran the Richmond meat shop where Harris' father worked was German American. As a result of his frequent contact with the family, Harris learned German and became a fluent speaker of the language. Harris' mastery of the language would help him later in life, when he examined the writings of German economists and social reformers like Karl Marx
.
He attended Virginia Union University
, graduating in 1922 with a Bachelor of Science
degree. Harris went on to earn an M.A. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh
in 1924. It was his masters' thesis, The Negro Laborer in Pittsburgh, that started his lifelong examination on the African American labor force.
's journal, Opportunity, that discussed the difficulties faced by African American mineworkers. His work in this field also addressed his concern about blacks and their white counterparts. Harris examined race prejudice of blacks by white workers. Meanwhile, Harris taught at West Virginia State University
, a small historically black public college in Institute, West Virginia
. During this year, he began a long and sustaining friendship with V. F. Calverton. He taught for a year, before he shifted directions and took the position as director of the Minneapolis Urban League. As director, he prepared a detailed report titled The Negro Population in Minneapolis: A Study of Race Relations dealing with the living conditions of African Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota
. Harris described the physical and socio-economic conditions of African Americans in Minneapolis in 1926. Using census data and statistical surveys, Harris tried to show that there was a strong social rift at the workplace between blacks and whites. Harris then enrolled at Columbia University
to pursue a Ph.D
in economics. In 1927, just a year into his doctorate studies, Harris joined the faculty of Howard University
. There, Harris collaborated with fellow black colleagues Ralph Bunche
and E. Franklin Frazier
, and attacked old values and outlooks on race.
Continuing with previous writings, Harris wrote his Ph.D thesis on the rift between African American and white labor in the United States. In 1930, he became the second African American to receive a doctorate in Economics in the United States, following Sadie Mosell Alexander. The following year, he collaborated his thesis with political scientist, Sterling Spero, to produce a famous study of African American labor history entitled The Black Worker, the Negro & the Labor Movement. Harris believed that African Americans needed to contribute to the development of a working-class political party in the United States. He expressed dislike for other strategies like rebellion, secession, or the various Back to Africa
movements — which Harris described as "Negro Zionism" — led by such figures as Marcus Garvey
and Haile Selassie I
.
In The Black Worker, Spero and Harris asserted that African Americans could put an end to the racial antagonism in the working class
. They wrote about the history of the racial predicament between whites and blacks had stemmed from the days of slavery. They argued that many African Americans had just recently migrated to the urban setting, and had been unaware of trade union
ism and its benefits. They stated that the anti-union beliefs held by organizations such as the National Urban League
also provided for the racial division seen in the working class between blacks and whites. Harris also was the author of a Progressive Labor Party
pamphlet in 1930 that called for the formation of a working-class political party in the United States. By this point, he and Calverton had grown distant; white journalist Benjamin Stolberg took Calverton's place as a major correspondent in Harris' life. They critiqued each others work and encouraged each other towards greater heights of accomplishment.
Harris, along with Frazier and Bunche, led the attack on the older generations at the NAACP's 1933 Amenia Conference. Harris' radical beliefs prompted a 1935 report entitled the Harris Report suggesting that the NAACP take a more active and affirmative stance on race relations in the United States. As the Great Depression
progressed, Harris' radicalism declined. As Harris wrote in the 1957 introduction to his personal collection of essays, he was "emerging from a state of social rebellion [while] still adher[ing] somewhat to socialistic ideas by the late 1920s." He published his most famous economics work in 1936, The Negro as Capitalist: A Study of Banking and Business. In the work, Harris wrote about the growing anti-business sentiment of the Great Depression
. Harris argued that black businessmen were under the false sense of racial solidarity between whites and blacks. He said that African Americans needed to participate in trade unionism with white businessmen. This was the reason for the problems in the development of black business. Harris concluded that the black middle class was using their racial pride and unity to support businesses controlled by the American middle class
. He felt that blacks were not reaching out to whites, and black business would not grow if there was no interracial trade. In reference to black complaints against Jewish businessmen, Harris said: Despite the heavy criticism against fellow black businesspeople, Harris' book achieved notability and recognition in the field of economics during the Great Depression
. In 1937, Harris founded the liberal Social Science Division of Howard University, and served as the group's leader through the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Harris left Howard in 1945 and moved to the University of Chicago
, and became one of the first African American
academics with a high position at a historically white institution. His move was facilitated on part of the efforts of Chicago economist Frank Knight
, one of the founders of the famed Chicago School
of economics that fostered the likes of Nobel Prize
-winning economists Milton Friedman
and George Stigler
. Knight had been publishing many of Harris' papers on the subject of economic doctrine in the Journal of Political Economy since the late 1920s when Harris was at Howard. With his move to Chicago, Harris' economic ideologies also seemed to change. His writings took more of the tone of orthodox economics, and his previous defense of Karl Marx
and other radical economists had turned into critical examinations of the works of these men.
Harris expressed deep concerns about the Soviet Union
's totalitarian direction led by Joseph Stalin
in works such as Black Communist in Dixie, published in the National Urban League magazine, Opportunity. However, Harris became silenced on the topic of race, and did not write about it for the remainder of his academic career. Harris spent the rest of his life at the University of Chicago and died on November 18, 1963.
for Economics in 1935, 1936, 1943 and 1953, Harris was one of the leaders of black economics through the early and mid 20th century. His early works such as The Negro as Capitalist set the precedent for contemporary African American radical thought. Harris' great number of works on race relations such as The Black Worker served as a model for future African American studies. His essays in The Journal of Political Economy have played a significant role for institutionalist economists and for economists studying the history of economic doctrines. He is still widely regarded as one of the first African Americans to achieve prominence in academia in the early 20th century, and an influential figure on a wide range of African American topics of interest.
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, academic
Academia
Academia is the community of students and scholars engaged in higher education and research.-Etymology:The word comes from the akademeia in ancient Greece. Outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning...
, anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and a social critic of blacks in the United States. Considered by many as the first African American to achieve prominence in the field of economics, Harris was also known for his heavy influence on black
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
radical and neo-conservative thought in the United States. As an economist, Harris is most famous for his 1931 collaboration with political scientist Sterling Spero to produce a study on African American labor history titled The Black Worker and his 1936 work The Negro as Capitalist, in which he criticized black businessmen for not promoting interracial trade. He headed the economics department at Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
from 1936 to 1945 and taught at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
from then until his death. As a social critic, Harris took an active radical stance on racial relations by examining historical black involvement in the workplace, and suggested that African Americans needed to take more action in race relations.
Early life
Harris was born into a middle-class African American family on January 17, 1899 in Richmond, VirginiaRichmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
. His father was a butcher at a meat shop, and his mother was a schoolteacher. The family that ran the Richmond meat shop where Harris' father worked was German American. As a result of his frequent contact with the family, Harris learned German and became a fluent speaker of the language. Harris' mastery of the language would help him later in life, when he examined the writings of German economists and social reformers like Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
.
He attended Virginia Union University
Virginia Union University
Virginia Union University is a historically black university located in Richmond, Virginia, United States. It took its present name in 1899 upon the merger of two older schools, Richmond Theological Institute and Wayland Seminary, each founded after the end of American Civil War by the American...
, graduating in 1922 with a Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
degree. Harris went on to earn an M.A. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
in 1924. It was his masters' thesis, The Negro Laborer in Pittsburgh, that started his lifelong examination on the African American labor force.
Career
He later published two articles in the National Urban LeagueNational Urban League
The National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
's journal, Opportunity, that discussed the difficulties faced by African American mineworkers. His work in this field also addressed his concern about blacks and their white counterparts. Harris examined race prejudice of blacks by white workers. Meanwhile, Harris taught at West Virginia State University
West Virginia State University
West Virginia State University is a historically black public college in Institute, West Virginia, United States. In the Charleston-metro area, the school is usually referred to simply as "State" or "West Virginia State"...
, a small historically black public college in Institute, West Virginia
Institute, West Virginia
Institute is an unincorporated community on the Kanawha River in Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA. The community lies off of Interstate 64 and West Virginia Route 25, and has grown to intermingle with nearby Dunbar...
. During this year, he began a long and sustaining friendship with V. F. Calverton. He taught for a year, before he shifted directions and took the position as director of the Minneapolis Urban League. As director, he prepared a detailed report titled The Negro Population in Minneapolis: A Study of Race Relations dealing with the living conditions of African Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
. Harris described the physical and socio-economic conditions of African Americans in Minneapolis in 1926. Using census data and statistical surveys, Harris tried to show that there was a strong social rift at the workplace between blacks and whites. Harris then enrolled at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
to pursue a Ph.D
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in economics. In 1927, just a year into his doctorate studies, Harris joined the faculty of Howard University
Howard University
Howard University is a federally chartered, non-profit, private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States...
. There, Harris collaborated with fellow black colleagues Ralph Bunche
Ralph Bunche
Ralph Johnson Bunche or 1904December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first person of color to be so honored in the history of the Prize...
and E. Franklin Frazier
E. Franklin Frazier
Edward Franklin Frazier , was an American sociologist. His 1932 Ph.D. dissertation The Negro Family in Chicago, later released as a book The Negro Family in the United States in 1939, analyzed the cultural and historical forces that influenced the development of the African American family from the...
, and attacked old values and outlooks on race.
Continuing with previous writings, Harris wrote his Ph.D thesis on the rift between African American and white labor in the United States. In 1930, he became the second African American to receive a doctorate in Economics in the United States, following Sadie Mosell Alexander. The following year, he collaborated his thesis with political scientist, Sterling Spero, to produce a famous study of African American labor history entitled The Black Worker, the Negro & the Labor Movement. Harris believed that African Americans needed to contribute to the development of a working-class political party in the United States. He expressed dislike for other strategies like rebellion, secession, or the various Back to Africa
Back-to-Africa movement
The Back-to-Africa movement, was also known as the Colonization movement, originated in the United States in the 19th century, and encouraged those of African descent to return to the African homelands of their ancestors. This movement would eventually inspire other movements ranging from the...
movements — which Harris described as "Negro Zionism" — led by such figures as Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., ONH was a Jamaican publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator who was a staunch proponent of the Black Nationalism and Pan-Africanism movements, to which end he founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League...
and Haile Selassie I
Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
Haile Selassie I , born Tafari Makonnen, was Ethiopia's regent from 1916 to 1930 and Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974...
.
In The Black Worker, Spero and Harris asserted that African Americans could put an end to the racial antagonism in the working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
. They wrote about the history of the racial predicament between whites and blacks had stemmed from the days of slavery. They argued that many African Americans had just recently migrated to the urban setting, and had been unaware of trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ism and its benefits. They stated that the anti-union beliefs held by organizations such as the National Urban League
National Urban League
The National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
also provided for the racial division seen in the working class between blacks and whites. Harris also was the author of a Progressive Labor Party
Progressive Labor Party (USA)
The Progressive Labor Party is a transnational communist party based primarily in the United States. It was formed in the fall of 1961 by members of the Communist Party USA who felt that the Soviet Union had betrayed communism and become revisionist and state capitalist...
pamphlet in 1930 that called for the formation of a working-class political party in the United States. By this point, he and Calverton had grown distant; white journalist Benjamin Stolberg took Calverton's place as a major correspondent in Harris' life. They critiqued each others work and encouraged each other towards greater heights of accomplishment.
Harris, along with Frazier and Bunche, led the attack on the older generations at the NAACP's 1933 Amenia Conference. Harris' radical beliefs prompted a 1935 report entitled the Harris Report suggesting that the NAACP take a more active and affirmative stance on race relations in the United States. As the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
progressed, Harris' radicalism declined. As Harris wrote in the 1957 introduction to his personal collection of essays, he was "emerging from a state of social rebellion [while] still adher[ing] somewhat to socialistic ideas by the late 1920s." He published his most famous economics work in 1936, The Negro as Capitalist: A Study of Banking and Business. In the work, Harris wrote about the growing anti-business sentiment of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Harris argued that black businessmen were under the false sense of racial solidarity between whites and blacks. He said that African Americans needed to participate in trade unionism with white businessmen. This was the reason for the problems in the development of black business. Harris concluded that the black middle class was using their racial pride and unity to support businesses controlled by the American middle class
American middle class
The American middle class is a social class in the United States. While the concept is typically ambiguous in popular opinion and common language use, contemporary social scientists have put forward several, more or less congruent, theories on the American middle class...
. He felt that blacks were not reaching out to whites, and black business would not grow if there was no interracial trade. In reference to black complaints against Jewish businessmen, Harris said: Despite the heavy criticism against fellow black businesspeople, Harris' book achieved notability and recognition in the field of economics during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. In 1937, Harris founded the liberal Social Science Division of Howard University, and served as the group's leader through the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Harris left Howard in 1945 and moved to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, and became one of the first African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
academics with a high position at a historically white institution. His move was facilitated on part of the efforts of Chicago economist Frank Knight
Frank Knight
Frank Hyneman Knight was an American economist who spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, where he became one of the founders of the Chicago school. Nobel laureates James M. Buchanan, Milton Friedman and George Stigler were all students of Knight at Chicago. Knight supervised...
, one of the founders of the famed Chicago School
Chicago school (economics)
The Chicago school of economics describes a neoclassical school of thought within the academic community of economists, with a strong focus around the faculty of The University of Chicago, some of whom have constructed and popularized its principles...
of economics that fostered the likes of Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning economists Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman
Milton Friedman was an American economist, statistician, academic, and author who taught at the University of Chicago for more than three decades...
and George Stigler
George Stigler
George Joseph Stigler was a U.S. economist. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1982, and was a key leader of the Chicago School of Economics, along with his close friend Milton Friedman....
. Knight had been publishing many of Harris' papers on the subject of economic doctrine in the Journal of Political Economy since the late 1920s when Harris was at Howard. With his move to Chicago, Harris' economic ideologies also seemed to change. His writings took more of the tone of orthodox economics, and his previous defense of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and other radical economists had turned into critical examinations of the works of these men.
Harris expressed deep concerns about the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
's totalitarian direction led by Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in works such as Black Communist in Dixie, published in the National Urban League magazine, Opportunity. However, Harris became silenced on the topic of race, and did not write about it for the remainder of his academic career. Harris spent the rest of his life at the University of Chicago and died on November 18, 1963.
Legacy
Harris is best known for his work as an economist and social critic of African American business. He had a heavy influence on both black radical and neo-conservative thought. A recipient of the Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
for Economics in 1935, 1936, 1943 and 1953, Harris was one of the leaders of black economics through the early and mid 20th century. His early works such as The Negro as Capitalist set the precedent for contemporary African American radical thought. Harris' great number of works on race relations such as The Black Worker served as a model for future African American studies. His essays in The Journal of Political Economy have played a significant role for institutionalist economists and for economists studying the history of economic doctrines. He is still widely regarded as one of the first African Americans to achieve prominence in academia in the early 20th century, and an influential figure on a wide range of African American topics of interest.