Loren Miller

Amina Hassan presents us with an excellent synthesis of African American History and the history of the West in her biography of Loren Miller. Miller’s origins were both humble and revolutionary. Miller’s father, John Bird Miller, was born a slave and after the Civil War found work as a laborer on the Union Pacific near Leavenworth, Kansas. There he met Nora Herbaugh, a white woman and normal school teacher. The two married in 1900 Iowa and quickly moved to Perder, Nebraska. There, Loren was born in 1903. Despite poverty and racial prejudice, young Miller graduated from high school, and attended the University of Kansas and then Howard University where he exhibited his literary skills and developed a life-long friendship with Langston Hughes. Eventually, Miller returned to Kansas and graduated with a bachelor of laws degree from Washburn College in June 1928. After graduation, Miller joined his family in Los Angeles, but instead of sitting for the bar he pursued his literary interests writing news copy for The Eagle. During this time period, Miller traveled to the Soviet Union in the company of Langston Hughes and others. Over the course of his subsequent career, Miller wrote numerous articles for communist publications and debated the merits of socialism, but Hassan presents conflicting information as to whether Miller became a communist or not (p. 123). In later years, after he purchased The Eagle in 1951, his politics were more clearly liberal.

Bachelor · Biography · Communism · Graduation (instrument) · Miller · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies