Jeffrey B. Perry

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Jeffrey B. Perry
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BornJeffrey Babcock Perry
(1946-10-10)October 10, 1946
Bronx, New York, United States
DiedSeptember 24, 2022(2022-09-24) (aged 75)
Hackensack, New Jersey
OccupationWriter, Union Leader, Mail Handler, Author, Scholar, Archivist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
SubjectsClass struggle, postcolonial studies, Hubert Harrison, Labor History, African American History

Jeffrey B. Perry (born 1946) was an anti-white supremacist working-class author, editor, activist, and archivist educated at Princeton (BA, 1968), Harvard (Education 1968-1969), Rutgers (Labor Studies MA, 1976), and Columbia (History MA, 1979 and Ph. D., 1986).

Life

Early Life and Education

Perry was born to Margaret Babcock Perry and John Perry in the Bronx, NY October 1946. In January 1955 he, his parents, and his two sisters (Pamela Lynn b. 1951 and Debra Joan, b. 1953) moved to Paramus, N.J. At Paramus H.S. he did well as a student, received county-wide honors in basketball, baseball, and soccer. His 1964 baseball team won County and State Championships. His 1963 basketball team won a County Championship.[1]

Academic and Political Life

At Princeton University Perry majored in psychology, played basketball and baseball, and joined Students for a Democratic Society. At Harvard, while in the Graduate School of Education, he did draft resistance work (and resisted the draft). He then left Harvard to hitchhike across the USA, the Caribbean and Argentina. [2]

On his return from South America, Perry spent time in Cuba on the second Venceremos Brigade.[3] After he returned from Cuba, throughout the early 1970's he continued to do anti-draft and anti-war organizing. He worked with the Black Panther Party and helped organize other Venceremos Brigades and did organizing and recruitment with the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in Hoboken NJ before starting work in the Postal Service.[4]

He later worked for an M.A. in Labor Studies under Wells Keddie at the Rutgers Labor Education Center; for an M.A. in History under Alden Vaughan at Columbia; and for a Ph. D. in History under Nathan Huggins and Hollis Lynch at Columbia.[5]

While working towards his Ph. D, Perry focused on the life and writings of Hubert Harrison, a Caribbean immigrant to Harlem who became a seminal figure in black liberation and labor movements during the Harlem Renaissance.[6]

Work on Hubert Harrison

Perry went on to become the executor of Harrison’s extensive archive after it was entrusted to him by the Harrison family and ultimately placed the Hubert H. Harrison Papers at Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library where they are posted online in a permanent searchable database. These archives were eventually categorized and published as the Hubert Harrison Reader.[7]

Perry’s rediscovery of Harrison has been praised by many notable scholars, including Cornel West[8] and David Roediger [9]. His writings on Harrison have been peer-reviewed [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and are included in graduate-level African-American studies programs.[19]

Work with Theodore W. Allen

Perry began working with Theodore W. Allen in the early 1970s when he assisted Allen with the printing and distribution of his early pamphlets which would eventually form the backbone of his two-volume work “Class Struggle and the Origin of racial slavery: The Invention of the White Race.”[20] Allen then named Perry as his literary executor describing him as, “the individual most intimately acquainted with the development of the book's arguments.” [21]

Perry also placed the Theodore W. Allen Papers and parts of his own Papers at the Archives of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.[22]

Postal Union Organizing

As a postal-worker activist and member of Local 300 of the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (a division of LIUNA) from 1974 to 2007 Perry was; a shop steward, elected assistant vice-president at the New Jersey and International Bulk Mail Center in Jersey City from 1984 to 1988, elected Local Treasurer of the Tristate Local 300 in New York City from 1988 to 2007,[23] and editor of newspapers at the rank-and-file, branch, local, and national levels. He was fired by the USPS in 1978 for leading protests against the tentative agreement but won his job back in 1979. [24]

In 1988, he was invited to the West Bank and The Gaza Strip as a trade union delegate and returned to testify before the U.S. Trade Representative on behalf of Palestinian Trade Unionists.[25]

Personal

In 1988 Perry married Becky Hom, who had been active in the Asian American Movement and they have one child, a daughter, Perri Hom.[26]

Works

Selected Writings

Jeffrey B. Perry, "No Basis for Claims John Punch Was 'Indentured' and Two Servants Were 'White'” History News Network, August 6, 2012

Jeffrey B. Perry, “Hubert Harrison (1883-1927)" Socialism and Democracy Volume 17, 2003

Jeffrey B. Perry, “In Memoriam: Theodore W. Allen" ZNET, February 2, 2005

Jeffrey B. Perry, “Theodore Allen on Race and Privilege” Socialist Worker.Org, April 28, 2015

Jeffrey B. Perry, “40th Anniversary of the Postal Wildcat Strike of 1978. Let Us Not Forget!”

Jeffrey B. Perry, “Race Consciousness and the Struggle for Socialism,” Socialism and Democracy, Vol. 17, No. 2 (June 2003)

References

  1. ↑ Mills, Ed. "Perry Starred on, off Athletic Field: Paramus Standout Now a Historian". The Record. The Record. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  2. ↑ Bruskin, Gene. "Long Live Jeff Perry". Portside. Portside. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  3. ↑ SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THEADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT. U.S. SENATE. July, 1975. Washington: U.S. Government P.O. 1975.
  4. ↑ Bruskin, Gene. "Long Live Jeff Perry". Portside. Portside. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  5. ↑ Ahern, Sean. "Jeffrey B. Perry (1946-2022)". Verso. Verso. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  6. ↑ Noden, Merrell. "Do-it-yourself scholars". Princeton. Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  7. ↑ Spike, Carlett. "Jeff Perry '68's Scholarship Is Elevating 'the Father of Harlem Radicalism'". paw.princeton.edu. Princeton. Retrieved 6 September 2023.
  8. ↑ Cornel, West. "Cornel West on Hubert Harrison, Thomas Paine, and Jeffrey B. Perry". Youtube. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  9. ↑ Roediger, David (2017). Class, Race, And Marxism. London: Verso. p. 63. ISBN 978-1-78663-123-7.
  10. ↑ Lee, Lester (2003). "A Hubert Harrison Reader [Review of A Hubert Harrison Reader]". Research in African Literatures - Indiana University Press. 34 (2): 230–231.
  11. ↑ Arnesen, Eric (2003). "Reviews: 'A Hubert Harrison Reader,' Edited by Jeffrey B. Perry". African American Review. 37 (1): 160–161.
  12. ↑ Phelps, Christopher (2004). "The Rediscovered Brilliance of Hubert Harrison". Science & Society. 68 (2): 223–230.
  13. ↑ Sterling, Johnson (2011). "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918". Journal of American Ethnic History. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.
  14. ↑ Moses, Wilson (2009). "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918". American Historical Review. Oxford: The University of Chicago Press.
  15. ↑ Harris, LaShawn (2010). "A More Complete Portrait: Revisiting African American Progressive Era Leadership". The journal of the gilded age and progressive era. 9 (4): 535–539.
  16. ↑ Heideman, Paul (2013). "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918". Historical materialism : research in critical Marxist theory. 21 (3): 165–177.
  17. ↑ Stevens, Margaret (2011). "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918". Science & Society.
  18. ↑ Hansen, Jonathan (2009). ""Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918". Journal of American History. Oxford: Organization of American Historians.
  19. ↑ Dept. Of History, Rutgers University. "Graduate African American History Reading List". Rutgers.edu. Rutgers. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  20. ↑ Ahern, Sean. "Jeffrey B. Perry (1946-2022)". Verso. Verso. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  21. ↑ Allen, Theodore (November 2012). The Invention of the White Race Volume One: Racial Oppression and Social Control. New York: Verso. p. vii. ISBN 9781844677696.
  22. ↑ Ahern, Sean. "Jeffrey B. Perry (1946-2022)". Verso. Verso. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  23. ↑ "Local 300 Mail Handler News" (PDF). National Postal Mail Handlers Union. 10 (1): 2. Spring 2007. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  24. ↑ Ahern, Sean. "Jeffrey B. Perry (1946-2022)". Verso. Verso. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  25. ↑ Bruskin, Gene. "Long Live Jeff Perry". Portside. Portside. Retrieved 15 February 2023.
  26. ↑ Alumni Weekly, Princeton. "Memorial: Jeffrey B. Perry '68". Princeton. Princeton Alumni Weekly. Retrieved 17 April 2023.

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