"to write black peotry is an
act of survival, of
regeneration, of love"

- Henderson

The Black Arts Movement has often been called sister to the Black Power Movement. Both movements call for a new and widened awareness of the richness of black culture. Unlike the Black Power Movement, though, the Blacks Arts Movement is not about protest or power. "The movement attempts to speak directly to Black people about themselves in order to move them toward self-knowledge and collective freedom. Much of the work produced at this time is considered art of liberating vision: liberation from slavery, from segregation and degradation, from wishful 'integration' into the 'mainstream,' to the passionate denial of white middle-class values of the present and an attendant embrace of Africa and the third world as alternative routes of development." These are the sentiments of Stephen E. Henderson, one of the main advocates of this movement and the writer of several works during this time. Henderson who was often described as diminutive- - no more that 5 feet tall, with a quiet voice and swept-back hair- - was born on October 13, 1925 in Key West, Florida. He attended Morehouse College with prominent people such as the writer Lerone Bennett and philosopher Alain Locke. He went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and shortly after started his career at Virginia Union University. Eventually, he returned to his alma mater and became both a professor and chairman of the English Department from 1962-1971.

His career then carried him to Howard University, where he was professor of African American Studies in 1971. Perhaps his most significant contribution to literature is his work Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic References. In this work "Dr. Henderson formulated and initiated a new frame-work for literary criticism, dialogue, and debate among writers attempting to synthesize the social, political, and cultural issues of the period. He also assigned the term 'blues aesthetic' to the Black experience, allowing for the continuity between the past, present, and future" (Program in African American Culture).

" Beginning in 1973 at Howard University such people as Andrew Billingsley, John O. Killens, Haki Madhubuti, Sterling A. Brown, and Henderson came together under the rubric of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities to analyze the Black Arts Movement of the sixties," recalls E. Ethelbert Miller, director of Howard's African American Resources Center. "They also debated the issue of black survival and discussed the need to control black images in the media." Such was the mission of Stephen Henderson. When asked why he had dedicated his life to African American studies, Henderson replied, "It just amounted to me coming to grips with myself."

Essay by Shaveda Scott of Howard University