faculty, staff, and artists whose work enhanced
black life. Guests included GWENDOLYN BROOKS,
AMIRI BARAKA, Harry Belafonte, Bernice Reagon,
ED BULLINS, and Richard Wesley. The institute
sponsored several publications, as well as the Na-
tional Conference of Afro-American Writers and
the first Ascension Poetry Reading. Henderson
ensured that key events were recorded and major
figures were interviewed on video or audiotape;
these records are currently housed in the African
American Resource Center and in the Moorland-
Spingarn Library at Howard University.
Henderson’s contributions to literature are best
interpreted within the milieu of the CIVIL RIGHTS,
BLACK POWER, and BLACK ARTS movements. Peo-
ple respected him across the political spectrum,
especially black nationalists. Henderson’s fellow
critics included George Kent, LARRY NEAL, and
ADDISON GAYLE, JR. As a literary critic, Henderson
documented the interdisciplinary influence of all
the arts on black poetry; defined several African-
American specific key terms, including “soul”; and
created new ones, such as “saturation,” to develop
and promote African-American literary theory. In
“ ‘Survival Motion,’ A Study of the Black Writer and
the Black Revolution in America,” Henderson de-
scribes “soul” as a primal spiritual and physical en-
ergy that taps into the black collective unconscious
and is deeply existential. He asserts the militancy
inherent in any person’s statement of Black Pride.
He calls creative expression an act of survival and
regeneration, as well as a means to self-knowledge
and self-celebration (65).
In his groundbreaking anthology, Understanding
the New Black Poetry, Henderson uses his introduc-
tion to further explain the innovations and conti-
nuity between writers in the 1960s and previous
generations of African-American poets. He refers
to the cumulative element of black experience con-
tained by a black poem as “saturation” and insists
that black poetry can only obtain validity from the
black community. Henderson’s selections of poetry
include both the rural and urban black oral tradi-
tions and music. He moves from the beginnings
in the 18th century through the HARLEM RENAIS-
SANCE toward the BLUES, the ballad, and jazz as the
links to the major section featuring black poetry of
the 1960s, arranged in order of publication. That
the names he selected are widely known today is
evidence of his astute judgment. As a critic, a pro-
fessor, an administrator, and a leader inspired to
document the contributions of blacks, Henderson’s
legacy rests in the generations of students and col-
leagues whom he inspired to continue to celebrate
black life through scholarship and the arts, and in
the unfinished business of documenting the black
contribution to arts and letters.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henderson, Stephen E. “Inside the Funk Shop: A
Word on Black Words.” Black Books Bulletin 1
(Summer/Fall 1973): 9–12.
———. “Saturation: Progress Report on a Theory of
Black Poetry.” Black World 24 (1975): 4–17.
———. “ ‘Survival Motion,’ A Study of the Black
Writer and the Black Revolution in America.” In
The Militant Black Writer in Africa and the United
States, edited by Mercer Cook, 65–129. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1969.
———. Understanding the New Black Poetry, Black
Speech & Black Music as Poetic References. New
York: Morrow, 1973.
Miller, E. Ethelbert. “A Conversation with a Literary
Critic.” New Directions: The Howard University
Magazine 13, no. 2 (1986): 20–27.
Salaam, Kalamu Ya. “A Deeper Understanding—Ste-
phen E. Henderson: A Profile of a Critical Thinker.”
In Fertile Ground: Memories and Visions, edited by
Kalamu Ya Salaam and Kysha N. Brown, 126–129.
New Orleans, La.: Runagate Press, 1996.
Julia A. GalbusHeritage Series of Black Poetry
One of the most important publishing outlets for
African-American poetry of the 1960s and 1970s
was an improbable venture run by a Dutchman in
London. In the late 1940s, a young BLUES aficio-
nado from Amsterdam named Paul Breman (b.
1931) “theorized” the existence of African-Ameri-
can poetry before ever encountering it. Breman
reasoned that the poetic discipline that under-
lies the blues would eventually have led to more244 Heritage Series of Black Poetry