Books by and about John Oliver Killens

Youngblood  /  And Then We Heard the Thunder  /  The Cotillion  /  The Great Black Russian

A Man-Aint-Nothin But A Man Adventures of John Henry  /  Slaves  / Sippi A Novel /  Black-SouthernVoices: An Anthology 

Great-Gittin-Up-Morning: A Biography of Denmark Vesey

Keith Gilyard, Liberation Memories: The Rhetoric and Poetics of John Oliver Killens (2003)

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John Oliver Killens (1916-1987)

Novelist, Harlem Guild Writer

Published originally on the heels of the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, Youngblood marked the beginning of a new era in African American literature, for it broke starkly with the Wright school and opened a path for those novelists, poets, and playwrights who comprised the Neo-Black Arts Movement--a movement that recognized John Oliver Killens as its spiritual father."

--Toni Cade Bambara

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John Oliver Killens's landmark novel of social protest of a Georgia family from the turn of the century to the Great Depression chronicles the lives of the Youngblood family and their friends in Crossroads, Georgia, from the turn of the century to the Great Depression. Its large cast of powerfully affecting characters includes Joe Youngblood, a tragic figure of heroic physical strength; Laurie Lee, his beautiful and strong-willed wife; Richard Myles, a young high school teacher from New York; and Robby, the Youngbloods' son, who takes the large risk of becoming involved in the labor movement.

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John Oliver Killens (January 14,1916–October 27, 1987), born in Macon, Georgia, to Charles Myles, Sr., and Willie Lee (Coleman) Killens. John Killens credits his relatives with fostering in him cultural pride and literary values. His father Charles encouraged him to read a weekly column by Langston Hughes; his mother Willie Lee, president of the Dunbar Literary Club, introduced him to poetry; and his great-grandmother filled his boyhood with the hardships and tales of slavery.

These early exposures to criticism, art, and folklore are evident in Killens' fiction, which depicts accurately social classes, engaging narratives, and successful layering of African-American history, legends, songs, and jokes. Killens planned to be a lawyer. He attended Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida (1934-1935) and Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia (1935-1936). He moved to Washington, D.C. and became a staff member of the National labor Relations Board (NLRB) and completed his B.A. through evening classes at Howard University. He studied at the Robert Terrel Law School from 1939 until 1942, but he completed only two-thirds of the program before he joined the army.

His second novel And Then We Heard the Thunder  (1963), which concerned racism in the military and the growth of racial identity and consciousness, was based on his service in the South Pacific. This novel, which deals also with a race riot, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

In 1946, Killens returned briefly to his job at the NLRB. In 1947-1948, he organized black and white workers for the Congress of industrial Organization (CIO) and was an active member of the Progressive Party. He soon became convinced that leading intellectuals, the white working class, and the U.S. government were not committed to an inclusive society.

In 1948, Killens moved to New York and attended writing classes at Columbia University and New York University. He met such influential figures as Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and W.E.B. Du Bois. While working on his fiction, he wrote regular articles for the leftist newspaper Freedom (1951-1955). During this period Killens developed definitive views on the purpose of the novel. He thus attacked Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man as a "decadent mixture . . . a vicious distortion of Negro life." Killens believed that literature should be created to improve society. "Art is functional. A Black work of art helps the liberation or hinders it."

Killens found other young writers with a similar perspective. With Rosa Guy, John Henrik Clarke, and Walter Christmas, Killens founded the Harlem Writers Guild in the early 1950s. Youngblood (1954) was the fist novel published by a guild member. The novels treats the struggles of a southern black family in early twentieth-century Georgia. With critical praise of the work, Killens toured to speak on subjects concerning African Americans. Some of the better known members and alumnae of the Guild include Maya Angelou, Ossie Davis, Audrey Lorde, Terry McMillan, Lon Elder III, Paule Marshal and Walter Dean Myers.

In 1955, Killens went to Alabama to research for a screenplay on the Montgomery bus Boycott and to visit with the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also became close friends close friends with Malcolm X and with him in 1964 founded the organization for Afro-American Unity (OAAU). Black Man's Burden (1965), a collection of political essays, documents his combination of socialist and nationalist sentiments. 

Killens' major subject is the violence and racism of American society, how it hinders manhood and family. 'Sippi (1967) is about a struggle over voting rights.  The Cotillion; or One Good Bull Is Half the Herd, published in 1971 and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, satirizes middle-class African-American values, and was the basis for Cotillion, a play produced 1975 in New York City. Killens' other plays include Ballad of the Winter Soldiers (1964), with Loften Mitchell) and Lower Than the Angels (1965). he wrote two screenplays, Odds Against Tomorrow (1959, with Nelson Gidding) and Slaves (1969, with Herbert J. Biberman and Alida Sherman). He also edited The Trial Record of Denmark Vesey (1972) and A man Ain't Nothing but a man: The Adventures of John Henry (1975).

By the mid-1960s, Killens had already started a string of positions as a writer-in-residence: at Fisk University (1965-1968), Columbia University (1970-1973), Howard University (1971-1972), Bronx Community College (1979-1981), and Medgar Evers College in the City University of New York (1981-1987). Other awards included a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1980) and a lifetime Achievement Award from the before Columbus Foundation (1986). Until his death, Killens continued continued to contribute articles to leading magazines such as Ebony, Black World, The Black Aesthetic, and African Forum. The Great Black Russian: a Novel on the Life and Times of Alexander Pushkin was published posthumously in 1988

Source: Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History (Vol. 3)

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updated 12 June 2008