Someone Had To Be Hated: Julian LaRose Harris: A Biography - Gregory C. Lisby

Someone Had To Be Hated: Julian LaRose Harris: A Biography Gregory C. Lisby ISBN 9780890896310

This book presents the life and career of Julian LaRose Harris (1874–1963), a prominent Southern journalist and newspaper publisher. The son of Joel Chandler Harris, the well-known Georgia journalist and folklorist, Harris inherited his father’s commitment to racial tolerance and reconciliation between the North and South after the Civil War. Early in his career, Harris worked for the Atlanta Constitution and the Paris edition of the New York Herald, and he also served during World War I. In 1920, he and his wife, Julia Collier Harris—a respected journalist and author in her own right—purchased the Columbus (Georgia) Enquirer-Sun.

During the nine years they operated the newspaper, the couple used it as a platform to confront major social issues of the time. They strongly opposed the Ku Klux Klan, lynching, anti-evolution legislation, prohibition, and political corruption. At the same time, they advocated for civil liberties, women’s rights, racial equality, improvements in Georgia’s public education system, and greater support for the University of Georgia. Their commitment to public service journalism was recognized in 1926 when the Enquirer-Sun received the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service.

Despite his achievements as a journalist, Harris struggled as a businessman. Financial difficulties and the risky actions of a trusted treasurer eventually forced him to relinquish ownership of the Enquirer-Sun in 1929. Afterward, he returned to the Atlanta Constitution for five years and later served for seven years as executive editor of the Chattanooga Times before retiring in 1942.

Harris was among a small group of Southern journalists in the 1920s who openly supported progressive and liberal causes. Others in this circle included Gerald W. Johnson, Grover C. Hall, George Fort Milton, and Louis I. Jaffe. Although earlier articles by scholars such as Lisby and Mugleston have discussed Harris’s work, this book provides the first comprehensive biography of his life. While H. L. Mencken famously described the American South of the 1920s as the cultural “Sahara of the Bozart,” Julian Harris—who was personally acquainted with Mencken—demonstrated that progressive and forward-thinking voices still existed in the region during that era.

Someone Had To Be Hated: Julian LaRose Harris: A Biography Gregory C. Lisby ISBN 9780890896310, 978-0890896310 & 978-08908-96310

Authors
Gregory C. Lisby
William F. Mugleston