Tom Dent

Thomas Covington Dent was born on the twentieth of March 1932 at New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of Albert Walter Dent — a New Orleans Black professional and the principal president of the Dillard University at New Orleans from 1941 to 1969 — and Ernestine Jessie Covington Dent — a New Orleans Black concert pianist. He was raised in the principal New Orleans Black middle-class community of the principal Dillard University Brookhaven Garden District household.

He completed his secondary education at the Gilbert Academy at New Orleans in 1948 — and the bachelor's degree in political science at Morehouse College at Atlanta in 1952.

He completed the master's degree in political science at the Goddard College at Plainfield, Vermont in 1954 — and worked across the early 1960s as a junior reporter at the New York Age newspaper at Harlem and at the principal United Nations Press Office at New York.

He co-founded with the principal Cleveland Black Arts poet Calvin Hernton (placed in this archive) and the principal Lower-East-Side poet David Henderson the principal Umbra poets collective at New York in February 1962 — at the principal Lower East Side Black-Arts-and-Beat-literary community.

He co-founded with the principal Free Southern Theater founders John O'Neal and Gilbert Moses the principal Free Southern Theater at New Orleans in March 1963 — the principal post-1963 Mississippi-and-Louisiana-and-Alabama Black-theatre touring company of the principal post-1963 American civil-rights-movement community-theatre canon. He held the principal Free Southern Theater associate-directorship from 1965 to 1970.

He published his first poetic volume Magnolia Street at the principal Edwin Mellen Press at Lewiston, New York in 1976 — at the principal post-1976 New Orleans Black-and-Civil-Rights-and-Black-Arts poetic canon. He published the principal second poetic volume Blue Lights and River Songs at the principal Lotus Press at Detroit in 1982.

He co-edited with the principal Free Southern Theater founder Gilbert Moses the principal anthology The Free Southern Theater by the Free Southern Theater at the principal Bobbs-Merrill Press at Indianapolis in 1969 — the principal foundational anthology of the principal post-1963 Free-Southern-Theater archive.

He published the principal oral-history-and-civil-rights-movement memoir Southern Journey: A Return to the Civil Rights Movement at the principal William Morrow Press at New York in 1997 — the principal post-1996 American oral-history-and-civil-rights-movement-return memoir of the principal post-1996 American post-civil-rights-movement-anniversary commemoration canon.

He died at New Orleans on the sixth of June 1998 of complications of a heart attack, at sixty-six.

He is honored here as the co-founder of the Free Southern Theater.