Golden, Harry Lewis
GOLDEN, HARRY LEWIS
GOLDEN, HARRY LEWIS (Herschel Goldhurst ; 1902–1981), U.S. author, editor, and publisher. One of five children of immigrants from Austria-Hungary, Golden was born on New York's Lower East Side. His father was an editor of the Jewish Daily Forward. Golden studied English literature, but left the university without completing his degree. During the "Roaring Twenties" he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for running a Wall Street gambling den. On his release he moved south, changing his name to Golden and becoming a successful journalist. Golden is best known for his one-man newspaper, The Carolina Israelite, which he published from 1942 to 1969. He was much admired by American liberals for his witty and courageous stand in favor of black integration, attacking race hatred as absurd rather than criminal. His bestselling books Only in America (1958), For 2¢ Plain (1959), and Enjoy (1960) were drawn from some of his editorials. Much of their charm lies in his folkloristic description of Jewish immigrant life. His other works include Mr. Kennedy and the Negroes (1964); So What Else Is New (1964); and an autobiography, The Right Time (1969). In 1965 he published A Little Girl Is Dead about the Leo *Frank case.
bibliography:
M. Levin (ed.), Five Boyhoods (1962), 37–78; T. Solotaroff, in: Commentary, 31 (1961), 1–13; Current Biography Year-book 1959 (1960), 150–2.
[Milton Henry Hindus]