Erna P. Harris
Erna Prather Harris (June 29, 1908 – March 9, 1995) was an American journalist, businesswoman, and activist, known for her pacifism. Born in Oklahoma, she grew up in the segregated South and attended Black schools. After graduating from Douglass High School in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, she worked as a maid to earn enough money to attend an integrated university. Graduating from Wichita State University in 1936, and unable to find work, she opened her own newspaper, The Kansas Journal.
Erna P. Harris | |
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![]() Harris in her signature beret, 1933 | |
Born | Erna Prather Harris June 29, 1908 |
Died | March 9, 1995 86) | (aged
Alma mater | Wichita State University |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1936–1980s |
The Kansas Journal was a successful Black publication until 1939, when she lost her advertisers because of an editorial she wrote opposing the draft. Moving to California, she worked as an editor for the Los Angeles Tribune, writing articles about racist policies such as segregation of blood supplies, immigration, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. She led protests in the 1940s against segregation in the military and in favor of conscientious objection. After being targeted by the FBI and McCarthyism, she criticized the House Un-American Activities Committee's activities. In the 1950s, she moved to Seattle, where she published a journal, Bias, advocating for peaceful cooperation, before moving to Berkeley, California, and operating a duplication and printing shop until her retirement.
Harris joined numerous pacifist organizations, including the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Workers' Defense League, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). She served as chair of the Berkeley branch of the WILPF in 1956, was twice appointed as a regional vice president of the national section and served on the national WILPF executive board. As a member of the WILPF's Civil Rights Committee, she was instrumental in pressing the organization to support school integration after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education and boycotts against companies supporting South African Apartheid. She was a delegate at three of WILPF's international congresses, 1956, 1965, and 1971.
Harris supported World Federalism as a means to maintain global peace, and attended a US–USSR summit in 1964 to promote cooperation between women. Involved in many issues, she opposed nuclear proliferation, Cuban isolationism, intervention in Latin America, the Vietnam War, California Proposition 6, and discrimination of any kind. In her later years, she became involved in the Consumers' Cooperative of Berkeley and the Gray Panthers. As a board member of the cooperative, she helped plan the 1978 expansion of the organization to include a credit union, funeral and travel services and a public housing project. After her death in 1995, the City of Berkeley named a housing project the Erna P. Harris Court in her honor.
Early life and education
![Portrait of a young black woman in a dark shirt with a wide white collar and bow at the neck](../I/Erna_Harris_1935_Parnassus.jpg.webp)
Erna Prather Harris was born on June 29, 1908, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, to Frances A. "Frankie" (née Prather) and James E. Harris.[1][2] Her father was a postman. As a pacifist and an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, he influenced his daughter's later activism.[3] Unlike most men in his community, he did not own a gun, but he routinely opposed the actions of the local Ku Klux Klan.[3][4] She attended segregated schools and graduated from Douglass High School in Kingfisher in 1926.[4][5][6] As she did not want to continue her education in a segregated setting, after graduation Harris worked as a domestic to earn enough money to attend an out-of-state integrated university.[3][4][7] She enrolled at Wichita State University, majoring in journalism and minoring in religion, sociology, and Spanish.[8] She began wearing a beret, later a signature part of her style, in university because men's hats were less expensive than women's headwear.[9] Harris was a reporter on the college press, The Sunflower, and while a freshman was the first woman to win a journalism prize. The paper won an award from the Collegiate Press Association while she was an editor during her senior year.[1][10] She was the only Black student in the journalism department and its first Black graduate when she earned her bachelor's degree in 1936.[3][10]
Career
![Group photograph of four men and one woman on the back row and four seated women in front. Harris, the only Black woman, is in the front row 2nd seat from the left.](../I/Sunflower_staff_1935.jpg.webp)
Unable to find employment, Harris borrowed $25 from a friend and started her own newspaper, The Kansas Journal. One of the few Black press publications in the area, the weekly paper focused on issues in the community.[3] For over three years, she built subscriptions from over 500 readers but an editorial opposing the draft, written in 1939, caused her to lose many of her advertisers and the paper closed.[1] She moved to California and began working as an editor for the Los Angeles Tribune.[3] The paper, which predominantly served LA's Black community, was known for its coverage confronting racism.[11] She wrote feature articles and had a syndicated column, "Reflections in a Crackt Mirror" that was distributed to other markets.[5][12]
Harris wrote columns over the duration of World War II against Japanese-American internments, equating the government's actions as an official sanction of prejudice and warning that such discrimination could spread to other communities like Jews, Mexican Americans, and other Asians.[3][5] She also wrote about the policies of segregating blood in use by the American Red Cross, staunchly supported open-immigration policies to assist people fleeing Nazi persecution, and opposed development of nuclear weapons.[4][10][13] Her articles brought her under attack by Westbrook Pegler, a fellow journalist, and to the attention of the FBI, who tapped the newspaper's phone and examined her mail.[3][5][10] Regardless of the opposition to her positions, Harris spoke out against investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee and McCarthyism.[14]
After eight years in Los Angeles, Harris moved to Seattle, Washington, and lived there for several years, continuing her journalism career.[13][15] Along with Dorothy Fisk, she published Bias, a journal advocating peace and cooperation.[16] In 1952, she moved to Berkeley where she operated a duplication and printing shop until her retirement.[3]
Activism
In the early 1940s, when Harris moved to Los Angeles, she joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization, and became active in its activities.[5] She also joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which advocated the development of communication and friendship as opposed to direct action, as the means to achieve racial equality.[17] Along with other CORE members and pacifist groups she worked to assist conscientious objectors by raising funds to pay the bail bonds of resisters and publicize the issue.[18] She became an associate secretary in the Workers' Defense League in 1945.[19] Three years later, she was one of the local leaders in the movement against segregation in the military, holding demonstrations and protests.[20] To keep his campaign promises and end the pressure by the Black community,[21][22] President Harry S. Truman, signed Executive Order 9981 in June 1948 to integrate the United States Armed Forces.[23] Harris joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in 1954.[24] Along with Bertha McNeill and Bessie McLaurin, she led the Civil Rights Committee of the national branch of WILPF. As soon as the decision for Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was issued by the Supreme Court, the committee began pressuring WILPF to openly support the ruling and help in enforcing school desegregation through rallies and demonstrations.[25] Similarly, she led WILPF to adopt a policy of opposition to apartheid in South Africa, linking racial inequality to global discontent, which could lead to war.[26] Part of the organization's response was to promote product boycotts against companies that supported segregation.[27]
Harris was elected chair of the Berkeley WILPF branch in 1956 and appointed to the national WILPF Executive Board the same year.[5][28] She was selected as a delegate for the international congress held in July in Birmingham, England, and the following month went with other women activists to attend the Commonwealth of World Citizens meeting at the Temple of Peace in Cardiff, Wales.[3][29] The idea of world citizenship typically included World Federalism and maintenance of peace through global laws.[30] Harris continued to support world governance, attending a conference in Wolfach, Germany, in 1968.[31] She made headlines, when she was chosen as one of twelve delegates to go to the Soviet Union in 1964 for a US-USSR summit on women's cooperation and peace initiatives.[4][5][32] Of all the issues discussed at the conference, Harris felt that the most important was global nuclear disarmament.[4] Both the WILPF and Harris shared the view that Communist nations should be integrated in global affairs, but that the United States should not interfere in their internal affairs. To that end, she opposed the United States policy of Cuban isolationism, intervention in Latin America, and the Vietnam War.[33]
Harris was twice elected as the southwestern regional vice president of WILPF and was a delegate to the 1965 International WILPF Congress in The Hague, Netherlands, and the 1971 congress in New Delhi, India.[3][34] During discussions in New Delhi, a philosophical divide emerged in the midst of world-wide social unrest at the end of the 1960s. On one side were absolute pacifists and on the other were those who believed that armed liberation movements were acceptable when people's human rights were repressed. Some members took the position that if there was no other way to avoid oppression or exploitation, violence was unavoidable.[35] Harris, in speaking on the issue said, "I support liberation, all kinds of liberation. And one of them is liberation from the notion that you can release violence on the world and not reap what you sow".[36] Ultimately, the WILPF endorsed a resolution of non-violence, but recognized that violent resistance was inevitable if all other measures failed to resolve inequalities caused by the power hierarchies of a society.[37]
In the 1970s, Harris became involved in the cooperative movement.[3] From 1978 to 1983, she was on the board of directors of the Berkeley Cooperative, the largest such organization in the country.[5][38] She and fellow activist Matt Crawford, solicited community input and assisted the city in planning the renovation of the University Avenue Cooperative, part of the Consumers' Cooperative of Berkeley. The remodeling took more than two years to complete and cost $1 million, of which ninety percent was member-funded. When completed in 1978, the consumers' co-operative included a credit union, as well as funeral and travel services, and Harris was one of the speakers at the dedication.[39] Seeking to further serve the community, the cooperative simultaneously made plans to develop a mixed-income housing cooperative on the adjacent property.[40] In March, for their community work, she and Mable Howard both received Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from the Center for Urban Black Studies, affiliated with the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley.[1][41] Ron Dellums, a California representative for the U.S. House, noted that she continued her activism for human rights regardless of whether her positions were popular.[7] She spoke in opposition to the passage of California Proposition 6, which would have barred LGBT teachers, and legislation that permitted discrimination for having different ideologies.[3] From the early 1980s, Harris was active with the Gray Panthers, an organization advocating for the rights of senior citizens.[5][42]
Death and legacy
Harris died on March 9, 1995, in Berkeley.[13] After her death, the City of Berkeley named the Erna P. Harris Court, a public housing project located at 1330 University Avenue, in her honor.[5][43] She is remembered for her outspoken criticism of racism and discrimination of any kind against minority populations, and in particular, her opposition to the treatment of the Japanese-American community.[5] Academic Greg Robinson stated, "Although less renowned a figure than [George] Schuyler or [Langston] Hughes, she proved the most forthright and fearless critic among African American columnists of the treatment of Japanese Americans".[44] Her papers are located in Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas and the African American Museum and Library at Oakland in California.[1][13] An oral interview of Harris was taken in 1985 by Judith Porter Adams and is housed in the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Collection in the Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford University.[45] Excerpts of the interview were published in the book Peacework: Oral Histories of Women Peace Activists in 1991.[46]
References
Citations
- Heyliger 2013.
- Marriage records 1904, p. 320.
- Edwards 1978b, p. 4.
- Intondi 2015, p. 69.
- Robinson 2019.
- The Kingfisher Times 1926, p. 9.
- Dellums 1990, p. 8814.
- The Kingfisher Free Press 1933, p. 10.
- Edwards 1978b, pp. 1, 4.
- Seibel 2016, p. 41.
- The New York Times 2011.
- Harris 1942, p. 16.
- Kenneth Spencer Research Library 2007.
- Blackwell 2004, p. 159.
- US Census 1950, p. 1.
- Friends Bulletin 1952, p. 7.
- Danielson 2014, p. 227.
- Mollin 2006, pp. 27–28.
- The Detroit Tribune 1945, p. 15.
- The California Eagle 1948, p. 17.
- National Archives 2023.
- Shaw & Donnelly2002, pp. 53–54.
- Fischer 2012, p. 273.
- The Berkeley Daily Gazette 1954, p. 10.
- Blackwell 2004, pp. 162–163.
- Blackwell 2004, pp. 176–177.
- Blackwell 2004, pp. 177–178.
- The Oakland Tribune 1956, p. 23.
- Blackwell 2004, p. 160.
- Montani 2018, p. xiii.
- The Woman Constitutionalist 1968, p. 2.
- The Oakland Tribune 1964, p. 21.
- Blackwell 2004, p. 176.
- Blackwell 2004, p. 191.
- Foster 1989, pp. 62–63.
- Foster 1989, p. 64.
- Foster 1989, p. 63.
- Edwards 1978a, p. 4.
- The North East Bay Independent and Gazette 1978b, p. 3.
- Edwards 1978a, p. 1.
- The North East Bay Independent and Gazette 1978a, p. 17.
- Alvarado 1982, p. 3.
- The Oakland Tribune 2009, p. 44.
- Robinson 2012, p. 168.
- Adams 1991, p. x.
- Adams 1991, pp. 101–104.
Bibliography
- Adams, Judith Porter (1991). Peacework: Oral Histories of Women Peace Activists. Twayne's Oral History Series. Vol. 5. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8057-9106-8.
- Alvarado, Donna (June 4, 1982). "Elderly Protest City Budget Cuts". North East Bay Independent and Gazette. Berkeley, California. p. 3. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- Blackwell, Joyce (2004). No Peace without Freedom: Race and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1975. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-2564-1.
- Danielson, Leilah (2014). American Gandhi: A.J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812290448. ISBN 978-0-8122-9044-8.
- Dellums, Ronald V. (April–May 1990). "In Tribute to Erna P. Harris". Congressional Record. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. 136 (6): 8814. OCLC 22840665.
- Edwards, Eleanor (May 9, 1978a). "House Co-op To Ask City for Seed Funds". North East Bay Independent and Gazette. Berkeley, California. p. 1, 4. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- Edwards, Eleanor (June 5, 1978b). "The Many Causes of Erna Harris". North East Bay Independent and Gazette. Berkeley, California. p. 1, 4. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- Fischer, David Hackett (2012). Fairness and Freedom: A History of Two Open Societies: New Zealand and the United States. Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-983271-2.
- Foster, Catherine (1989). Women for All Seasons: The Story of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-1092-3.
- Harris, Erna P. (August 29, 1942). "Reflections in a Crackt Mirror". Detroit Tribune. Detroit, Michigan. LATF. p. 16. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- Heyliger, Sean (September 5, 2013). "Erna P. Harris papers". Online Archive of California. Oakland, California: African American Museum and Library at Oakland. MS 54. Archived from the original on October 27, 2020. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
- Intondi, Vincent J. (2015). African Americans against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. doi:10.1515/9780804793483. ISBN 978-0-8047-9348-3. S2CID 242840768.
- Mollin, Marian (2006). Radical Pacifism in Modern America: Egalitarianism and Protest. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi:10.9783/9780812202823. ISBN 978-0-8122-0282-3.
- Montani, Guido (2018). Supranational Political Economy: The Globalisation of the State-Market Relationship. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-23586-6.
- Robinson, Greg (2012). After Camp: Portraits in Mid-Century Japanese American Life and Politics. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27158-6.
- Robinson, Greg (November 26, 2019). "Erna P. Harris: An African-American Champion of Equality". Discover Nikkei. Los Angeles, California: Japanese American National Museum. Archived from the original on November 9, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- Seibel, Jessica (Spring 2016). "Found Stories: Renaissance Woman". The Shocker. Vol. 18, no. 2. Wichita, Kansas: Alumni Association of Wichita State University. p. 41. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- Shaw, Henry I., Jr.; Donnelly, Ralph W. (2002). Blacks in the Marine Corps. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Marine Corps. OCLC 70811978.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - "12 Women Talk Peace with Soviet". Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California. May 1, 1964. p. 21. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "1950 US Census, Seattle, King County, Washington". Official 1950 Census Website. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. March 30, 1950. p. 2. Enumeration District 40–441, line 3. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
- "Across Our Cluttered Desk". Friends Bulletin. Portland, Oregon: Pacific Yearly Meeting of Friends: 7. January–February 1952. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
- "Almena Lomax, Who Founded Los Angeles Tribune, Is Dead at 95". The New York Times. New York, New York. Associated Press. April 8, 2011. Archived from the original on October 28, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- "Berkeley Tea Event to Fete Erna Harris". Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California. May 27, 1956. p. 23. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Co-op Dedication". North East Bay Independent and Gazette. Berkeley, California. May 20, 1978. p. 3. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Douglass High School To Have Six Graduates". The Kingfisher Times. Kingfisher, Oklahoma. May 13, 1926. p. 9. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Douglass School". The Kingfisher Free Press. Kingfisher, Oklahoma. October 5, 1933. p. 10. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Guide to the Erna Prather Harris Collection". Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas. 2007. RH MS P732. Archived from the original on January 28, 2023. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
- "Joins WDL Staff". Detroit Tribune. Detroit, Michigan. May 26, 1945. p. 15. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Legal Notice". Oakland Tribune. Oakland, California. July 1, 2009. p. 44. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Marriage Record: James E. Harris/Frankie A. Prather". FamilySearch. Kingfisher, Oklahoma: Kingfisher County Courthouse. December 7, 1904. p. 320. vol 2–3, 1903–1910. Retrieved January 26, 2023.
- "One-Worlders Study Model Constitution". The Woman Constitutionalist. Summitt, Mississippi: Women for Constitutional Government. 5 (2): 2. October 5, 1968. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
- "Peace League to Study UN Charter". The Berkeley Daily Gazette. Berkeley, California. October 28, 1954. p. 10. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspaperarchive.com.
- "Segregation Fight Continues without A. Philip Randolph". California Eagle. Los Angeles, California. September 2, 1948. p. 17. Retrieved January 27, 2023.
- "The Election of 1948". Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. 2003. Archived from the original on January 28, 2023. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
- "Two Women Are Honored". North East Bay Independent and Gazette. Berkeley, California. March 9, 1978. p. 17. Retrieved January 27, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.