Hodge Kirnon
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Hodge Kirnon | |
|---|---|
 Hodge Kirnon by Alfred Stieglitz, 1917 | |
| Born | May 13, 1891 |
| Died | 1962 |
| Occupation(s) | Scholar, historian, activist, elevator operator |
| Employer | 291 (art gallery) |
| Organization(s) | International Colored Unity League; Harlem Educational Forum |
Hodge Kirnon (13 May 1891 - November 1962)[1][2] was a Montserratian scholar, historian, and literary critic,[3] who also worked as an elevator operator at Alfred Stieglitz' gallery 291.[4][5] He has been described as "one of the leading lights of the postwar Negro Renaissance"[2] and as Montserrat's first historian.[3]
Activism and scholarship
In New York, Kirnon "established a reputation as a thinker and a journalist".[3] He contributed regularly to publications such as The Messenger and Negro World, and associated closely with fellow Harlem radicals like Hubert Harrison and Joel Augustus Rogers.[8][9] In 1920, he moved towards Marcus Garvey's movement, but was unafraid of criticising it.[7] He wrote in support of the movement's "racial radicalism", but described it as "downright ignorance and unspeakable folly" not to work interracially in fighting for workers' rights.[7] According to UCLA's Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, Kirnon believed that "Racial consciousness should... be developed alongside of class consciousness."[7]
Kirnon began editing the "short-lived but significant magazine",[10] The Promoter in 1920, described by Negro World as "radical and racial".[11][12][7] He was vice president of and a speaker for the International Colored Unity League (ICUL), which called for "Political Equality, Social Justice and Civic Opportunity".[8] ICUL's other officers included Harrison, John I. Lewis, and J. Dominick Simmons.[8] Kirnon was also involved in the Harlem Educational Forum (HEF), alongside Richard B. Moore, Grace Campbell, and others.[8] The committee believed in "the necessity of full, free and vigorous discussion as the only means of discovering the truth.” Its motto was "Admission free, thought free, speech free— eventually, mankind free."[8] Kirnon took part in a debate at Ethelred Brown's radical Harlem Unitarian Church, arguing for "no" on the question: "Is Religion a Vital Factor in Human Progress?”[13]
In 1925, Kirnon published a book called Montserrat and the Montserratians, based on a lecture at the Montserrat Progressive Society Hall in New York the year before.[3] By 1928, he was chairman of the publicity committee for the Montserrat Progressive Society.[7] Writing in The Messenger, Joel Augustus Rogers described Kirnon as "a finer poised and better equipped sociological thinker than any other Negro I know of."[14]