Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr.
Born	January 17, 1899(1899-01-17) Richmond, Virginia
Died	November 6, 1963 Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	economist, academic, anthropologist

Abram Lincoln Harris, Jr. Events 38 BC - Octavian marries Livia Drusilla. 1287 - King Alfonso III of Aragon invades Minorca Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common This article is about the city of Richmond the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Events 355 - Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. An economist is an expert in the Social science of Economics. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of (January 17, 1899 - November 6, 1963) was an American economist, academic, anthropologist and a social critic of blacks in the United States. Events 38 BC - Octavian marries Livia Drusilla. 1287 - King Alfonso III of Aragon invades Minorca Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Events 355 - Roman Emperor Constantius II promotes his cousin Julian to the rank of Caesar, entrusting him with Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the An economist is an expert in the Social science of Economics. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[1] 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. African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[2] 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. ^[1] He headed the economics department at Howard University from 1936 to 1945 and taught at the University of Chicago from then until his death. Howard University is a private, Coeducational Nonsectarian University located in Washington D The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. ^[3] 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. ^[2]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 3 Legacy 4 References

Early life

Harris was born into a middle-class African American family on January 17, 1899 in Richmond, Virginia. Events 38 BC - Octavian marries Livia Drusilla. 1287 - King Alfonso III of Aragon invades Minorca Year 1899 ( MDCCCXCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common This article is about the city of Richmond the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia. His father was a butcher at a meat shop, and his mother was a schoolteacher. ^[1] The family that ran the Richmond meat shop that Harris' father worked at was German American. As a result of his frequent contact with the family, Harris learned German and became a fluent speaker of the language. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. 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. ^[1]

He attended Virginia Union University where he studied anthropology, black studies and economics, graduating in 1922 with a Bachelor of Science degree. Virginia Union University (VUU is a historically black university located in Richmond Virginia. Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of In United States education, Africana studies, or Africology is the study of the histories politics and cultures of peoples of African origin both in Africa Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. A Bachelor of Science ( BS, BSc or BSc in the UK; less commonly S ^[4] Harris went on to earn an M. A. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1924. The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a non-sectarian coeducational independent state-related, "public" research University ^[2] 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 League's journal, Opportunity, that discussed the difficulties faced by African American mineworkers. The National Urban League ( NUL) formerly known as the National League of black men and women, is a Civil rights organization based in New York City His work in this field also addressed his concern about blacks and their white counterparts. Harris examined race prejudice of blacks by white workers. ^[1] Meanwhile, Harris taught at West Virginia State University, a small historically black public college in Institute, West Virginia. West Virginia State University is a historically black (though now over 90 percent white public college in Institute, an Unincorporated area of Kanawha Institute is an Unincorporated community on the Kanawha River in Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA. 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. ^[5] Using census data and statistical surveys, Harris tried to show that their was a strong social rift at the workplace between blacks and whites. ^[1] Harris then enrolled at Columbia University to pursue a Ph.D in economics. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. "PhD" redirects here for other uses see PhD (disambiguation. In 1927, just a year into his doctorate studies, Harris joined the faculty of Howard University. Howard University is a private, Coeducational Nonsectarian University located in Washington D There, Harris collaborated with fellow black colleagues Ralph Bunche and E. Franklin Frazier, and attacked old values and outlooks on race. Dr Ralph Johnson Bunche ( August 7, 1903 &ndash December 9, 1971) was an American Political scientist and Diplomat Edward Franklin Frazier (September 24 1894 - May 17 1962 was an American Sociologist. ^[2]

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. ^[1] 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. ^[2] 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. The Back-to-Africa movement, also known as the Colonization movement, originated in the United States in the Nineteenth century, and encouraged those Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr, National Hero of Jamaica (17 August 1887 10 June 1940 was a Publisher, Journalist, Entrepreneur, Black nationalist Haile Selassie I ( Ge'ez: am ኃይለ፡ ሥላሴ "Power of the Trinity " 23 July 1892 &ndash 27 August 1975 born Tafari Makonnen, was ^[1]

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 is a term used in academic Sociology and in ordinary conversation to describe depending on context and speaker those employed in specific fields or types 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 unionism and its benefits. A trade union or labour union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages hours and working conditions forming 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. The National Urban League ( NUL) formerly known as the National League of black men and women, is a Civil rights organization based in New York City 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. The Progressive Labor Party (originally the Progressive Labor Movement and often referred to as PL) is a transnational Communist party based ^[1]

Harris, along with Frazier and Bunche, led the attack on the older generations at the NAACP's 1933 Amenia Conference. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is one of the oldest and most influential Civil rights organizations 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. ^[2] 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. "^[1] 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. ^[6] Harris concluded that the black middle class was using their racial pride and unity to support businesses controlled by the American middle class. ^[7] 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:

“

In their confusion, the masses are led to direct their animus against the Jew and against whiteness. The real forces behind their discomfort are masked by race which prevents them from seeing that what the Negro businessman wants most of all is freedom to monopolize and exploit he market they provide. They cannot see that they have no greater exploiter than the black capitalist who lives upon low-waged if not sweated labor, although he and his family may and often do, live in conspicuous luxury. [8]

”

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. ^[2]

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. The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. African Americans or Black Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have origins in any of the black populations of Africa 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 Noble Prize-winning economists Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Frank Hyneman Knight ( November 7, 1885 - April 15, 1972) was an important Economist of the twentieth century The Nobel Prize (Nobelpriset (Nobelprisen is a Swedish prize established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel; it was first awarded in Peace, Literature Milton Friedman (July 31 1912 November 16 2006 was an American Nobel Laureate Economist and Public intellectual. George Joseph Stigler ( January 17, 1911 December 1, 1991) was a U Knight had been publishing many of Harris' papers on the thematics 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. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. 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. ^[1]

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. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party ^[2] 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. The University of Chicago is a Private university located principally in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. Events 326 - The old St Peter's Basilica is consecrated 1302 - Pope Boniface VIII issues the Papal bull Year 1963 ( MCMLXIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

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. ^[2] A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for Economics in 1935, 1936, 1943 and 1953,^[9] Harris served as one of the leaders of black economics through the early and mid 20th century. Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who 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. ^[1] 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.

References

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