Excerpt from: World's Great Men of Color. Vol.

2 by Joel Augustus Rogers

Hubert Harrison

“Harrison's lifelong enemy, like that of most scholars was poverty. Destiny sent
him into this world very poor. And if this were not enough, she gave him a
critical mind, and a candid tongue, a family to support, a passion for knowledge;
on top of all that, a black skin, and sent him to America. Surely a more
formidable string of handicaps would be hard to conceive.”

"That individuals of genuine worth and immense potentialities who dedicate their
lives to the advancement of their fellowmen, are permitted to pass unrecognized
and unrewarded from the scene, while others, inferior to them in ability and
altruism, receive acclaim, wealth, and distinction, is common — yet it never ceases
to shock all but the confirmed cynic. Those with a sense of right and wrong, of
fitness and incongruity — whether they be wise men or fools — will forever feel
that this ought not to be."

"Shakespeare was so little regarded during his lifetime that no one bothered to
record the details of his life, and today most of what is said about him is pure
conjecture. Gregor Mendel, whose experiments were to revolutionize biology and
agriculture was practically unknown until sixty years after his death. Of course,
there are some of genuine worth who do not die obscure and who do win gradual
recognition while alive. But why are so many whom we feel really ought to be up,
down; and why are so many who certainly ought to be down, up?"

"Hubert Henry Harrison is the case in point. Harrison was not only perhaps the
foremost Afro-American intellect of his time, but one of America's greatest minds.
No one worked more seriously and indefatigably to enlighten his fellowmen; none of
the Afro-American leaders of his time had a saner and more effective program —
but others, unquestionably his inferiors, received the recognition that was his due.
Even today but a very small proportion of the Negro intelligentsia has ever heard of
him."

(From: World's Great Men of Color. Vol. 2, p. 611, New York: J. A. Rogers,
1947).