Conrad Kent Rivers

Conrad Kent Rivers was born on the fifteenth of October 1933 at Atlantic City, New Jersey, the son of a New Jersey Black family of the principal post-Great-Migration Atlantic City and the principal post-1933 Atlantic City Black-tourism community. He was raised in the principal Atlantic City Black community and at the family relocation to Chicago in the principal early-1940s post-Great-Migration period.

He completed his secondary education at the Wilberforce University Combes Academy at Wilberforce, Ohio in 1951 — and attended Wilberforce University from 1951 to 1955. He completed the bachelor's degree at Temple University at Philadelphia in 1959.

He taught across the principal late-1950s and 1960s as an English teacher at the Gage Park High School at Chicago and at the principal Chicago Board of Education public-school community.

He published his first poetic volume Perchance to Dream, Othello at the principal Free Lance Press at Cleveland in 1959 — and his second poetic volume These Black Bodies and This Sunburnt Face at the principal Free Lance Press at Cleveland in 1962. He was a principal Free Lance Press poet alongside Russell Atkins (placed in this archive) under the principal Free Lance Press founding period of Atkins and Casper LeRoy Jordan.

He co-edited with the principal Negro Digest principal editor Hoyt W. Fuller the principal Negro Digest poetic section at Chicago from 1965 to 1968 — at the principal Negro Digest pre-Black-World transition period and the principal post-1965 Chicago Black-Arts-Movement Negro Digest poetic-editing canon.

He was a principal co-founding poet of the principal Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) at Chicago in 1967 — alongside Hoyt W. Fuller, Don L. Lee (Haki Madhubuti), Carolyn Rodgers (placed in this archive), and the principal post-1967 Chicago Black-Arts-Movement literary-and-cultural collective.

He was a principal Richard Wright scholar across the principal post-1960 American Black-Wright-scholarly community — and published the principal post-1968 commissioned-poetic anthology The Wright Poems at the principal Free Lance Press at Cleveland in 1971 (posthumous), the principal poetic-anthology dedicated to the memory of the principal American novelist Richard Wright.

He was awarded the principal 1960 Best Poet of the Year Award of the Free Lance Press at Cleveland — and the principal posthumous 1969 Conrad Kent Rivers Memorial Award of the Society of Midland Authors at Chicago.

He died at Chicago on the twenty-fourth of March 1968 of complications of a heart attack, at thirty-four.

He is honored here as the co-founder of OBAC and the founding Black-Arts-Movement poet of the Free Lance Press.