A Dream Deferred: The Art and Activism of Edwin Augustus Harleston

Art historian McDaniel resurrects in this comprehensive debut biography the life of South Carolina portraitist and activist Edwin A. Harleston (1882–1931). Born in Reconstruction-era Charleston, S.C., Harleston developed a proclivity for the arts early on. He left home to attend Atlanta University, where he forged close relationships with W.E.B. Du Bois, then a professor, and classmates who became connections for art commissions. After graduating, Harleston refined his portraiture skills at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts before returning to Charleston to work at his father’s funeral home. The threat of Jim Crow spurred him to found a Charleston chapter of the NAACP. Harleston also pursued his art career during and after the war, traveling for commissions and assisting Aaron Douglas on the Fisk University library murals—though he never achieved a breakthrough and only posthumously received the attention he yearned for during his life. Drawing from extensive primary sources provided by Harleston’s niece, McDaniel crafts a worthy tribute to an overlooked artist driven to “present an accurate Black image to the public” but constrained by the era’s prejudices. The result is a valuable window into Black American life and art in the late 19th and early 20th century South. (Jan.)