THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 13, 1997 TAG: 9701110065
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 83 lines
A PORTSMOUTH native who made national news when he became an editor at Doubleday and Co. 40 years ago will come home this week to speak at the Second Tuesday Forum.
Charles F. Harris, 63, was one of the first - and probably the youngest - black editors at a major publishing house. He now heads Amistad Press, an independent company described by The Washington Post as ``the country's most significant African-American publisher.''
``A lot of success has to do with people you meet,'' Harris said in a telephone interview from his office in the Time-Life Building at New York's Rockefeller Plaza.
For instance, his friendship with Richmond tennis great Arthur Ashe led to Amistad's first triumph: the publication of Ashe's three-volume history of black athletes. Ashe, who died in 1993, was one of the original investors in the publishing company launched in 1986.
Harris was in the process of building the Howard University Press in the 1970s when he first met Ashe.
``Somebody who knew us both told Arthur about me,'' Harris said. ``So Arthur called me and said he was thinking about doing the history of African-American athletes and would Howard be interested in publishing them.''
Before the series was finished, Harris left Howard University to start Amistad.
``Howard let me take Ashe with me,'' he said. ``Arthur helped me raise money and guaranteed loans to get started.''
Harris said Amistad now has revenues of about $3 million annually.
``We're getting a big shot in the arm this year,'' he said.
Whitney Houston has acquired the motion picture rights to his major spring book, a biography of Dorothy Dandridge by Donald Bogle. She'll star as Dandridge, the first African American to receive an Oscar nomination for best actress for her performance in ``Carmen Jones'' in the 1950s.
``And Disney is putting up the money for the movie,'' Harris said.
Another book scheduled for publication this spring is especially important to Harris. His two sons, Francis C. Harris and Charles F. Harris Jr., have compiled ``The Amistad Pictorial History of the African American Athlete,'' a two-volume set that covers both collegiate and professional sports.
Harris said one of the most interesting people featured in the history is William Henry Lewis, born the son of slaves in Norfolk's Berkley section in 1868. A star football player at both Amherst and Harvard, he was the first black to be named an All-American player and later became the first black admitted to the American Bar Association.
``Young people need to see the faces of these people,'' Harris said.
While growing up, Harris wanted to become a newspaperman.
After producing a newspaper column, ``Notes From Norcom,'' for the old Portsmouth Star during his high school years, Harris was the first editor of Spartan Echo at Norfolk State University. After graduating from Norfolk State and a stint in the U.S. Army, he arrived in New York in 1956 with the goal of landing a job on one of the city's numerous daily newspapers in existence at the time.
``I used to buy all those newspapers from the newsstand down near the old ferry landing on the Portsmouth waterfront, and I dreamed of working for one of them,'' he said.
Instead, his family contacts at the Urban League office in New York steered him to the job at Doubleday.
``It was not what I wanted then, but it turned out to be good for me,'' he said. ``They first put me in the business section and research department and even sent me to the New York University business school.''
After five years, Harris became an editor in the education department. ``It was sink or swim, but I made it,'' he said.
Harris said that in Portsmouth he will discuss his work with Ashe, Muhammed Ali and other renowned African Americans as well as ``the New York publishing scene today.''
He will speak at noon Tuesday at the Commodore Theater. The forum, sponsored by the Portsmouth Public Library, is free and open to the public. ILLUSTRATION: Charles F. Harris
WANT TO GO?
What: Lecture by book publisher Charles F. Harris
When: Noon Tuesday
Where: Commodore Theatre, 421 High St., Portsmouth
Cost: Free
Information: 393-8501
Arthur Ashe's series of books on black athletes was Amistad's first
triumph.