Harry Lewis Golden was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Jewish writer and newspaper publisher. He was born Herschel Goldhirsch in the shtetl

Shtetl

A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

 Mikulintsy, Ukraine, then part of Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...

. His mother was Romanian and his father Austrian.

In 1904 his father, Leib Goldhirsch, emigrated to Winnipeg, Manitoba, only to move the family to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 the next year. Harry became a stockbroker but lost his job in the 1929 crash

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. Convicted of mail fraud

Fraud

In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...

, Golden served five years in a Federal prison at Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

. In 1941, he moved to Charlotte, where, as a reporter for the Charlotte Labor Journal and The Charlotte Observer

The Charlotte Observer

The Charlotte Observer, serving Charlotte, North Carolina and its metro area, is the largest newspaper, in terms of circulation, in North Carolina and South Carolina...

, he wrote about and spoke out against racial segregation

Racial segregation

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...

 and the Jim Crow laws of the time.

From 1942 to 1968, Golden published The Carolina Israelite as a forum, not just for his political views (including his satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 "The Vertical Negro Plan", which involved removing the chairs from any to-be-integrated building, since Southern Whites didn't mind standing with Blacks, only sitting with them), but also observations and reminisces of his boyhood in New York's Lower East Side

Lower East Side

The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....

. He traveled broadly: in 1960 to speak to Jews in West Germany

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

 and again to cover the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...

 in Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

 for Life

Life (magazine)

Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....

. He is referenced in the lyrics to Phil Ochs

Phil Ochs

Philip David Ochs was an American protest singer and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice...

' song, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal

Love Me, I'm a Liberal

"Love Me, I'm a Liberal" is a satirical song by Phil Ochs, a U.S. protest singer. Originally released on his 1966 live album, Phil Ochs in Concert, "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" was soon one of Ochs's most popular concert staples...

": "You know, I've memorized Lerner

Max Lerner

Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner was an American journalist and educator known for his controversial syndicated column....

 and Golden." In 1974, he received a presidential pardon

Pardon

Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...

 from Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

.

Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin

Calvin Marshall Trillin is an American journalist, humorist, food writer, poet, memoirist and novelist.-Biography:Trillin attended public schools in Kansas City and went on to Yale University, where he served as chairman of the Yale Daily News and was a member of Scroll and Key before graduating...

 devised the Harry Golden Rule, which states that, according to Trillin, "in present-day America it's very difficult, when commenting on events of the day, to invent something so bizarre that it might not actually come to pass while your piece is still on the presses."

His books include three collections of essays from the Israelite and a biography of his friend, poet Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

. One of those collections, Only in America, was the basis for a play by Jerome Lawrence

Jerome Lawrence

Jerome Lawrence was an American playwright and author.-Life and career:Lawrence was born Jerome Lawrence Schwartz in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Sarah , a poet, and Samuel Schwartz, a printer. He worked for several small newspapers as a reporter/editor before moving into radio as a writer for CBS....

 and Robert E. Lee. He also maintained a correspondence with Billy Graham

Billy Graham

William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...

.

Awards

• Golden is honored with a memorial on the central campus of Central Piedmont Community College
  Central Piedmont Community College
  Central Piedmont Community College is a large community college in Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The school was founded in 1963; it is the result of a merger between Mecklenburg College and the Central Industrial Education Center....
  
   in Charlotte.

External links

• The Harry Golden Papers -- from UNC-Charlotte

External links

• A Little Girl is Dead, dramatized and fictional account of the 1913 Leo M. Frank Case.
• Biography of Harry Golden