“Son, you write with a wicked pen. I just wish I could get you on my side.” K. B. Young, Dean of Students at Tuskegee Institute, once said to future Award-winning author, Harold Michael Harvey.
The year was 1973. Harvey, a political science major, wrote a weekly column in the Campus Digest, the student newspaper, and defended students before the Institute’s Judicial Board.
Like Perry Mason, the future lawyer never lost a case.
Harvey’s columns appeared under the heading of SLOWLY. From this platform, he used Black history’s backdrop to methodically dismantle the Institute’s rationale for deeding the Carver Museum and the home of Booker T. Washington to the federal government.
He drew the admiration of Dean Young, but the irk of President Luther Foster. Harvey paid a high price for speaking the truth to power, you can read about it in his memoir, Freaknik Lawyer, but he learned from that experience the powerful need a constant dose of the truth.
During the pandemic, Harvey’s wicked pen has been prolific. He has written two books during the quarantine on subjects that the passion runs deep, baseball, and his 27-year friendship with civil rights activist Rev. Dr. C. T. Vivian.
In The Duke of 18th & Vine: Bob Kendrick Pitches Negro Leagues Baseball, Harvey pays homage to the rich untold history of Black men playing baseball during the era of segregation.
He then shares a few of his private mentoring sessions with Dr. Vivian in My C. T. Vivian Story: A Powerful Flame That Burned Brightly, as Vivian goes behind the civil rights scene revealing how we arrived at this epoch in time.
We round out the Harvey Collection with Justice in the Round: Essays on the American Jury System, Harvey’s prophetic plead five years ago that accurately foretold the violence witnessed in American streets this year.
In this year of Black Lives Matter, give the gift of worthy reading material that explains how we got here and how we can get over there, wherever over there is.
Whether you are white, Brown, Yellow, or Black, give a gift that will inspire the world to come to terms with its past, give the Harvey Collection.
FROM THE DESK OF C M HARVEY
Harold Michael Harvey is the Living Now 2020 Bronze Medal winner for his memoir Freaknik Lawyer: A Memoir on the Craft of Resistance. He is a Past President of the Gate City Bar Association. He is the recipient of Gate City’s R. E. Thomas Civil Rights Award, which he received for his pro bono representation of Black college students arrested during Freaknik celebrations in the mid to late 1990s. Harvey is an engaging public speaker, contact him at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com.