Harry Golden: Bestselling author, raconteur, and advocate for civil rights with his irreverent newspaper, The Carolina Israelite

Golden goes South

Golden headed South to start a new life after prison. By the early 1940s he was selling ads and writing for small papers, including the Charlotte Labor Press and Dixie Farm News. He was immediately fascinated by the extent of segregation he witnessed in everyday life. Golden would later claim he moved South in order to write about the simmering civil rights movement, but in reality it was a combination of nerve, insatiable curiosity about his fellow human beings, and an accident of timing that put him in a front-row seat for the revolution.

Brash newcomer

Golden was welcomed by business leaders in Charlotte's Jewish community, including I.D. Blumenthal, Arthur Goodman, Maurice Speizman, and Hermann Cohen. They encouraged Golden to launch an interfaith newspaper by 1941, then watched with mixed feelings as it grew into a quirky personal journal full of his irreverent wit and self-promotion. Golden often poked fun at the foibles and what he saw as hypocrisies of his fellow Jews, especially those in the South. The statement, “Harry Golden does not speak for me” was a frequent declaration by some members of the Charlotte Jewish community. 
 

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