Stephen E. Henderson (October 13, 1925 – January 7, 1997) was an American professor of African-American literature and culture, whose 1973 book ''Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic Reference'' is regarded as a seminal work. He is noted for providing the first formal interpretation of militant Black poetry, and, with

Vincent Harding Vincent Gordon Harding (July 25, 1931 – May 19, 2014) was an African-American pastor, historian, and scholar of various topics with a focus on American religion and society. A social activist, he was perhaps best known for his work with and wri ...

and William Strickland, for founding the

Institute of the Black World The Institute of the Black World (IBW) was a think tank based in Atlanta, Georgia, which was founded and directed by African diaspora intellectuals from 1969 to 1983. Led primarily by Vincent Harding, it was originally a project of the Martin Lut ...

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, Georgia.

Biography

Henderson was born in

Key West, Florida Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Sigsbee Park, Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Isla ...

. He served two years in the U.S. Army towards the end of the Second World War, and then enrolled at

Morehouse College , mottoeng = And there was light (literal translation of Latin itself translated from Hebrew: "And light was made") , type = Private historically black men's liberal arts college , academic_affiliations ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and sociology with high honors in 1949. He went on to pursue graduate studies at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

, being awarded a master's degree in English in 1950.Bethel, Kari
"Stephen E. Henderson 1925–1997"
''Contemporary Black Biography'', encyclopedia.com. In 1950, he became a professor of English at Virginia Union University, which post he held until 1962, meanwhile obtaining a PhD in English and Art History (1959). In 1962 he took an appointment as chair of the English department at Morehouse, and from 1969 for two years was as a senior research fellow at the Institute for the Black World in Atlanta, before in 1971 taking on professorship at Howard University in Washington, D.C., teaching in the departments of English and African American Studies. He was director of the Institute for the Arts and the Humanities at Howard (1973–85), and also lectured in the US and abroad. Henderson's 1973 book ''Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic Reference'' is regarded as a seminal work that has been "heralded as the first formalized articulation of a theoretical understanding of African-American poetry and sparked new debate and dialogue in the world of African-American literature." Henderson retired in 1992 and died aged 71 at his home in Langley Park, Maryland, on January 7, 1997.

Selected works

* (With Mercer Cook) ''The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United States'',

University of Wisconsin Press The University of Wisconsin Press (sometimes abbreviated as UW Press) is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It publishes work by scholars from the global academic community; works of fiction, memoir and po ...

, 1969. * ''Understanding the New Black Poetry: Black Speech and Black Music as Poetic References'', Morrow, 1973.

References

1925 births 1997 deaths 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics American literary theorists Howard University faculty Military personnel from Florida Morehouse College alumni Morehouse College faculty People from Key West, Florida United States Army personnel of World War II University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Virginia Union University faculty Writers from Florida {{africandiaspora-stub

Biography

Selected works

Further reading

References