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Harry Golden: Bestselling author, raconteur, and advocate for civil rights with his irreverent newspaper, The Carolina Israelite Main Menu J. Murrey Atkins Library, UNC Charlotte

Mocking Jim Crow, gaining fame

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By the 1950s, Golden's Carolina Israelite had a loyal and widespread following. (It was published on a changing schedule, usually monthly or semi-monthly, from 1944-1968). In 1956 he published the first of his satiric “Golden Plans” to combat segregation, using his Swiftian sense of the absurd to mock racism. “The Vertical Negro Plan” ridiculed the Jim Crow practice that allowed Black and white individuals to share public spaces only if they were standing – but prohibited it while they were seated, as on a bus or in a classroom. Take the desks out of the schools, Golden reasoned, and – voila! Problem solved.

Only in America, a bestseller

Golden filled the pages of his homely little newspaper with satire, book reviews, political commentary, self-promotion, and memories of his Lower East Side childhood. He was a gifted salesman – and postwar America was ready to gobble up his nostalgia and humor, which meant they were also experiencing his push to end segregation and racism. Golden's life changed when Ben Zevin, president of World Publishing, proposed compiling his essays into the 1958 book Only in America. Golden would go on to write more than 20 books, five of which were bestsellers. Golden was already a popular speaker at Jewish events, and now he was in demand from one end of the country to the other, on college campuses, at political events, on radio and TV.

Trial by fire and scandal

Two events that could have devastated Golden instead pushed him into greater fame. A chimney fire at his Charlotte home and office destroyed many of his beloved books and papers. When national wire services picked up the news, support poured in from all over the country. Then, on the heels of the blockbuster debut of Only in America, an anonymous letter to Golden’s publisher and major media outlets revealed the prison past he’d kept a secret. Instead of derailing his career, it made Golden more of a celebrity and book sales climbed even higher.

Highlander Folk School and healthcare

Golden became strongly identified with the civil rights movement after he was invited to speak at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, in 1958. Highlander, inspired by adult-education folk schools in Denmark, was supporting civil rights efforts, including registration of Black voters. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and others considered Highlander to be a dangerous nest of Communists, and some of Golden’s friends tried to dissuade him from accepting the speaking invitation. But once Golden learned that former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, whom he revered, would be attending there was no stopping him. After his well-received talk at Highlander about racial disparities in healthcare, Golden began to push harder to end those injustices.

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Harry Golden signing a copy of "Only in America"
Harry Golden with the rescued circulation list for the Carolina Israelite. When the fire in his office burned nearly all subscriber records (kept only on paper in this pre-computerized era) Golden was sure the Carolina Israelite was out of business. His friend Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn took the burned pages to the State Police lab where they were restored. After a beaming Golden posed with the lists for photographers, the story was picked up by wire services and published around the world. Golden's subscriber list -- and his fame -- grew exponentially as a result.