Harry Golden (6 May, 1902 – 2 October, 1981) was a Jewish American writer, editor, and publisher born in Ukraine. He is known for as a person who “fought bigotry with humor.
Books by or about Harry Golden*
Fun Facts About Harry Golden:
- Harry Golden was born as Herschel Goldhirsch in a place called the shtetl Mikulintsy, Austria-Hungary (now part of Ukraine).
- Leib Goldhirsch, the patriarch, moved the family to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1904. After a short while, the Goldhirsch family moved again, this time to New York City.
- Mr. Golden’s first job was selling newspapers. Later on he would go and write about some of the headlines he was shouting in the streets.
- For a while, Harry Golden as a stockbroker. Unfortunately for him, this was in the late 1920s and he lost his job when the stock market crashed in 1929.
- Because he held onto funds entrusted to him, causing investors to lose money Harry Golden was convicted of mail fraud and served four years in prison. He got a full pardon from President Richard M. Nixon.
- He moved to Charlotte, NC to work as a reporter for Charlotte Labor Journal and The Charlotte Observer. Not a man deterred from controversy, Harry Golden was an unreserved and outspoken critic of racial segregation and Jim Crow laws.
- Some of the stories about Harry Golden include removing chairs from any segregated building because obviously whites only minded sitting with blacks, not standing (as in lines to the bank). Another experiment was to put an “out of order” sign on a white-only water fountain. Not surprisingly within three weeks everyone were drinking from the colored-only fountain without any issues.
- In 1961 Mr. Golden went to Israel to cover the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann for Life.
- The Harry Golden Rule, formulated by American humorist Calvin Trillin says that “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.”
- Mr. Golden won several awards and honors for his work and writing. These awards included the Annual Award for Distinguished Journalism from the Joint Defense Appeal of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League (1959), and the North Carolina Award for Literature (1979).
Books by or about Harry Golden*
Zohar — Man of la Book
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Fun Facts Friday: Harry Golden
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Harry Golden (6 May, 1902 – 2 October, 1981) was a Jewish American writer, editor, and publisher born in Ukraine. He is known for as a person who "fought bigotry with humor.
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Man of la Book
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