By John G. Jackson

For many years, Black Atheists have been excluded from the pages of Atheist history, sometimes because of bias, sometimes because of ignorance. If one read through the very few surveys of Atheist history written by Atheists, one simply would not find the names, the portraits, of Atheist leaders and spokespersons who were Black. Atheists had alwasy tended to assume, or had assumed, that Atheism in America was a white, male phenomenon, that Black Atheists who did exist were anomalies of recent vintage. Others, in the long held tradition of American racism, had never welcomed or encouraged the addition of Blacks to the ranks of 'organization' Atheists. In its February 1987 issue, the American Atheist (published by the American Atheist Press) began an attempt to correct that situation. In honor of Black History Month, it published a special section entitled "Atheists of a Different Color: A Minority's Minority." The twenty-four-paged feature included essays on the history of Black Atheists and the special perspectives of Black Atheists. This book was one of the essays included in that issue. Its author, John G. Jackson, brought to it decades of "hands-on experience" of Atheist history. He was able to bring to life one of the lost heroes of Atheism. Prof. Jackson had known Harrison while he was still alive, had heard the vibrancy of his lectures himself. Jackson had previously elucidated some of the history of Black Atheists in a lecture, "The Black Atheists of the Harlem Renaissance (1917-1928)," before the Fourteenth Annual National Convention of American Atheists in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1984.