Pascack Valley Community Life from Westwood, New Jersey • A9

BLACK HISTORY MONTH PFLAG announces Feb. 17 meeting Jeffrey B. Perry: Freethinker, historian, educator TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON PFLAG (Parents, Families Friends of Lesbians Gays), a support, education advocacy group, meets the third Tuesday of every month at Temple Beth Or, 56 Ridgewood Road, Township of Washington. Meetings start at 7:30 p.m. for newcomers and run until 9:30 p.m.

This month the group will discuss the recently aired Lifetime movie "Prayers for Bobby." Call the support line at 201-287-0318 or refer to www.bergenpflag.org for additional information and directions. KAREN F. MRNAREVIC Community Life Look and Feel Ten Years Younger! As a senior, you have special dental needs. Medications can discolor your teeth.Your crowns, bridges, and dentures have to be just so. You need the local dentists at Pascack Dental Arts with their extra training and concern for senior dental care.

Ask us about cosmetic dental makeovers. It's a risk-free way for you to meet the dentists who have helped over 10,000 patients. x-rays not included Insurance accepted and filled weekend hours BY Of It takes a lot of guts to challenge outdated, institutionalized modes of thinking, to hold a magnifying glass to the American past, and question how its events are recorded and interpreted. Jeff Perry, of Westwood, is a man who is unafraid of shaking things up, and he has made it the focus of his professional career to clear away the cobwebs that occlude the truth about the history of race relations in our country. His eventual objective is to convince the great minds of the future that things can and will change in America.

But first we must acknowledge our weaknesses, and identify the ills we have committed, lest we be doomed to repeat them. In November, Columbia University Press published the first volume of Perry's two-volume biography of Hubert Harrison, a black orator, writer, and activist whom Perry calls one of the most important 20th century thinkers in race and class in America. Harrison has been largely forgotten since his death in 1927 in part because he was ahead of his time. The book, "Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918," is the culmination of decades of research, traveling, blood, sweat and tears. Perry says, "It is meant to be a tool and a weapon" in the study of race and class and social reform.

Below, Perry discusses where he is coming from, the origins of his passion, and what he hopes to accomplish. Senior friendly staff LJii Complete dental exam Consultation with the dentist Report of Findings Robert H. Guller, DMD Marie Grodsinsky, D.D.S. Dorothy A Feehan, D.M.D Leah Stamler, D.D.S Cheryl Marcus, D.D.S. Harold E.Mapes, D.D.S Fadi Beydoun, D.M.D.

5023 Priyu Gupta, D.D.S. 5794 DovHook, D.M.D.5447 PHOTO COURTESY OF JEFF PERRY (This $75 value is for new patients only) 201-391-5565! Westwood resident Jeffrey B. Perry is working on what he calls his greatest achievements, "making the writings of Harrison and Theodore W. Allen available on a much wider basis." 21 South Kinderkamack Montvale, New Jersey Liberation I started working at the Post Office in 1974 in Jersey City. I wound up being a postal worker for 33 years.

I was selected the head of the union for that facility for a while. We had strikes against the Post Office in 1978 you're not allowed to strike against the Post Office in this country and several hundred people were fired. Paramus High School in 1964. Graduated from Princeton University in 1968. Went to Harvard Graduate School of Education, and withdrew because we were studying education at the time, and the Coleman Report of the 1960s seemed very clearly to suggest to me that test scores and attitudinal values were significantly determined by socioe- How long have you lived in West-wood? Since 1990.

But I grew up in Paramus. What is your profession? Independent scholar. Iconoclast and activist: I worked as a journalist at The Record for a My job title was "wire room boy," but I had problems when the wire came in and said "Black Rhodesian terrorists," and I would change it to, "Zimbabwe SEE PERRY, PAGE 18 School days: Graduated from JOC Glic Bridal Evening Casual W.JJ.UH,IIUI.Ui-H.UIUI.U. 70i Use your insurance budget to protect again the big loss, not the small one. That's the prudent way to buy insurance.

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