Tom Dent Bio

Books by Tom Dent

Southern Journey / Blue Lights and River Songs / The Free Southern Theater

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Tom Covington Dent

(1932-1998)
New Orleans Writer & Cultural Activist

Thomas Covington Dent (1932-1998), poet, essayist, oral historian, dramatist, and cultural activist, was born on 20 March 1932 at Flint Goodridge Hospital in New Orleans, LA. He was the oldest of three sons, including Benjamin and Walter born, to Dr. Albert Walter Dent and Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent. Tom and his brothers grew up in a prominent socially aware southern family.

Tom's father Albert Dent was president of Dillard University and Tom was groomed to become a major figure in the Black professional world. In 1947 Tom graduated from Gilbert Academy, a college preparatory school for Black students located on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. He then attended and graduated from Morehouse (B.A., Political Science, 1952). At Morehouse, Tom was editor of literary journal Maroon Tiger. He did graduate work at Syracuse University's School of International Studies (Maxwell School of Citizenship 1952-56) where he completed all of his course work leading to a doctorate. (photo right ) Albert Dent

After two-years in the United States Army (1957-59), Tom Dent moved to New York and resided there from 1959 to 1965. He worked as a reporter for a Harlem newspaper, the New York Age (1959-60). From 1960-1961 he worked as social worker for New York Welfare Department, and then as a press attaché and public information director for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (1961-63), assisting Thurgood Marshall.

During his years in New York, Tom was active as both a political and cultural activist. In addition to his NAACP work, he was active around demonstrations at the UN and in other Civil Rights and anti-Colonial struggles. As a cultural activist in 1962, Tom was one of the founders of the New York based Umbra Writer's Workshop, the first major post-sixties organization of Black writers. More than forty books have been published by Umbra Workshop members who include Ishmael Reed, Calvin Hernton and David Henderson. (photo left: Jesse C. Dent)

According to Kalamu ya Salaam, "Umbra (1962) was a collective of young Black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side; major members were writers Steve Cannon, Tom Dent, Al Haynes, David Henderson, Calvin C. Hernton, Joe Johnson, Norman Pritchard, Lenox Raphael, Ishmael Reed, Lorenzo Thomas, James Thompson, Askia M. Touré (Roland Snellings, also a visual artist), Brenda Walcott, and musician-writer Archie Shepp." The Umbra group split up in 1964.

In 1965, Tom returned to New Orleans for a short visit decided to help out with the Free Southern Theater (FST), an activist community theater project. Tom became associate director of the Free Southern Theater (1966-70), organized performances throughout the South. Tom also founded the FST Writing Workshop, which eventually became BLKARTSOUTH.

According to Kalamu ya Salaam, BLKARTSOUTH (co-led by Kalamu) "was an outgrowth of the Free Southern Theatre in New Orleans and was instrumental in encouraging Black theater development across the South from the Theatre of Afro Arts in Miami, Florida, to Sudan Arts Southwest in Houston, Texas, through an organization called the Southern Black Cultural Alliance."

Between 1968 and 1973, the FST Writing Workshop also published Nkombo, a literary journal. In collaboration with Richard Schechner and Free Southern Theater co-founder Gilbert Moses, Tom Dent edited the 1969 book The Free Southern Theater by The Free Southern Theater.

Additionally, Tom was instrumental in founding the Southern Black Cultural Alliance (SBCA), in an effort to coordinate the activities of writers, thespians, and artists from through out the South. After leaving FST, Tom Dent would go on to found the New Orleans-based Congo Square Writer's Union and edit its journal, The Black River Journal. ( Photo left, Tom and poet David Henderson)

From 1968 to 1970, Dent commuted to and taught at Mary Holmes College in West Point, Mississippi. In 1969 along with Dr. Jerry Ward and Charles Rowell, Tom Dent founded Callaloo, A Quarterly Journal of African and African American Arts and Letters. In the early seventies Tom Dent contributed articles and plays to the then fledgling Black Collegian Magazine. Tom Dent served as public relations director for New Orleans antipoverty agency (1971-74); awarded an MFA in creative writing from Goddard University in 1974 and in 1974 he was awarded a Whitney Young Fellowship. From 1979 to 1981, Tom was the Marcus Christian Lecturer in Afro-American Literature at the University of New Orleans.

Tom Dent produced two books of poetry, Magnolia Street (1976) Blue Lights and River Songs (1982). Additionally, Tom wrote a number of plays Negro Study No. 34A (1970), Snapshot (1970), Ritual Murder (1976), which is now considered a classic of New Orleans theater. Although written in the seventies, the play's theme and commentary continues to be relevant and productions remain popular in the nineties.

As an indefatigable chronicler and oral historian, Tom between 1978 and 1985, conducted oral histories of Mississippi Civil Rights workers, and in 1984 conducted an oral history of New Orleans and Acadian musicians. The tapes from both collections are now housed at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans.

From 1984 to 1986 Tom worked as a writer on Andrew Young's autobiography, An Easy Burden. In the nineties, Tom worked with Dr. Ward on the Mississippi Oral History Project focusing on local Mississippi participation in the Civil Rights movement. (Left, Louis Edwards, Tom Dent, Jason Berry, Eric Ellie Tom Piazza)

From 1987 to 1990, Tom Dent served as the Executive Director of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, which presents the annual New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. During the 1990s Tom traveled in the Caribbean and in Africa investigating cultural connections between the African-heritage cultures of the Diaspora and Africa. At the time of his death, Tom Dent was working on two journals, a collection of reflections on New Orleans and a series of personal essays on the connections and disruptions between Africa and African Americans.

Tom Dent had a lifelong commitment to the goals and objectives of the Civil Rights movement. In the midst of all of his literary activity, along with Richard and Oretha Castle Haley, and Florence Borders, Tom Dent founded Voices of the New Orleans Movement, a group dedicated to commemorating the history of the civil rights movement in New Orleans. The culmination of Tom's Civil Rights documentation was the 1996 publication of his last and most important book, Southern Journey, which was his findings resulting from revisiting towns and cities which were major sites of Civil Rights activity and interviewing with former participants and their descendants. Southern Journey is the most eloquent and informative assessment of the victories and failures of the Civil Rights movement thus far produced.

Although he could have had a successful academic career, like many of his peers who came of age during the Civil Rights movement, Tom Dent chose to dedicate his life to the fulfillment of social goals and group aspirations. Tom Dent literally lived and worked to document and accurately tell the story of his people's struggles, dreams, and achievements. Tom Dent's life serves as a sterling example of the socially committed cultural worker.

Tom died of complications from a heart attack on 6 June 1998 at Charity Hospital in New Orleans.

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Tom Dent Bio-Sketch

Personal

Family

Born 20 March 1932 in New Orleans, LA; son of Albert (a university president) and Jesse (a teacher and concert pianist; maiden name Covington) Dent

Education

Morehouse College, B.A., 1952

Goddard College, M.A., 1974

Military/Wartime Service

U.S. Army, 1957-59

Memberships

African Literature Association

Modern Language Association

Awards

Whitney Young Fellow, 1973-74

Career

Executive Director of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation, 1987 to 1990

Marcus Christian Lecturer in Afro-American Literature at the University of New Orleans, 1979 to 1981

Co-Founder of Callaloo (literary journal), 1978

Editor of Black River Journal, 1976

Founder of Congo Square Writers Union, New Orleans, 1974

Public Relations Officer of Total Community Action, 1971-73

Co-Editor of Nkombo, 1968-74

Instructor at Mary Holmes College, 1968-70

Associate Director of Free Southern Theater, 1966-70

Public Information Worker for Legal Defense Fund (NAACP), 1961-63

Co-founder of Umbra Workshop (NYC) and Co-Publisher of Umbra (poetry magazine), 1962

Co-Publisher of On Guard for Freedom (political newspaper), 1960

Reporter for New York Age, 1959

Writings & Publications

Southern Journey: A Return to the Civil Rights Movement (University of Georgia Press, 2001)

Magnolia Street (privately printed, 1976 and 1987)

Blue Lights and River Songs: Poems (Lotus Press, 1982)

The Free Southern Theater (by Free Southern Theater; Editor with Richard Schechner and Gilbert Moses, Bobbs-Merrill, 1969

Plays

Song of Survival: One Act-Play (with Val Ferdinand, n.d.)

Ritual Murder: One Act Play (first produced New Orleans Ethiopian Theater, 1976)

Snapshot: One Act Play (first produced New Orleans Free Southern Theater, 1970)

Negro Study, No. 34A: One Act Play (first produced in New Orleans Free Southern Theater, 1970)

Anthologies

Anthology of the American Negro in Theatre

Black Culture

An Introduction to Black Literature in America

New Black Voices

Poetry, Short Stories, Drama

Callaloo

Nkombo

Pacific Moana Quarterly

Umbra

Articles and Critical Reviews

Black American Literature Forum

Black Creation

Black River Journal

Black World

Crisis

Freedomways

Jackson Advocate

Negro Digest

Obsidian

Further Readings about the Author

Books

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 38: Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, Gale 1985

Who's Who Among African Americans, Marquis, 1998-99

Periodicals

Callaloo, November 4, 1978

Drama Review, fall, 1987

New York Times, June 11, 1998, p, B12

Washington Post, June 11, 1998, p. D8

World Literature Today, autumn, 1982

Xavier Review, Volume 6, No. 1, 1986

Source: black-collegian.com reportingcivilrights.org www.ishmaelreedpub.com books.dillard.edu

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update 9 April 2008