Abram L. Harris was the second Black person to obtain an economics Ph.D. in the United States and a major figure in the early years of the American Civil Rights movement. Upon his death in 1963 his colleague and friend, Frank Knight delivered memorial remarks. The remembrance explains how Knight and Harris met, how Harris came to Chicago, and how the two scholars shared an intellectual commitment to the idea of race as “caste” and an opposition to state paternalism. We consider Knight’s odd characterization of Harris’ early work as “propaganda” as well as Harris’s extensive analysis of paternalism before he went to Chicago.
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