Calvin Hicks

Calvin L. Hicks (August 18, 1933 - August 25, 2013) was an African-American journalist, activist, editor, and music educator. He died in New York.[1]

Life

Born in Boston, Hicks wrote for the Boston Chronicle while still in high school. He graduated from Drake University. After writing for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, he moved to New York City. In 1960, he founded and chaired the On Guard Committee for Freedom. A Black nationalist literary organization in the Lower East Side. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse, Amiri Baraka, Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, Archie Shepp, Walter Bowe, and Sarah Wright, among others. On Guard participated in protests one being the protest at the United Nations of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion and was active in support of the Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba. The organization viewed the liberation of Africa as part of the struggle for Black liberation in the United States. On Guard went on to publish their own newspaper with Hicks as the editor. In typical male chauvinist fashion, Sarah E. Wright was by-passed and her contribution as founder ignored. Hicks was executive director of the Monroe Defense Committee in support of Robert F. Williams, and was active in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He was one of the founders of Umbra Magazine, with poet and writer Tom Dent. Hicks was also a member of the Harlem Writers Guild, and active in the Black Arts Movement, where he is considered to have been one of the primary players.[2] As a freelance writer, his articles appeared in Freedomways, New Challenge, New York Age.

He worked as an instructor at Brooklyn College, Richmond College (now known as College of Staten Island) and City College of New York. Beginning in 1969, he taught at Brandeis University, and then at Goddard College, Brown University, and at Roxbury Community College. He was a co-founder of the Black Educators Roundtable in Boston. From 1974 to 1975, he was a graduate fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, he graduated from Cambridge College with a master's degree in the philosophy of education. He was a member of the liberal arts faculty and administration at the New England Conservatory of Music from 1992 to 2008.[3] He is also a faculty member at the Longy School of Music.[4][5]

Awards
  • Distinguished Achievement in Education Award (Boston Orchestra and Chorale, 1998)[6]
  • Distinguished Service Award, Dean of Arts and Sciences (Roxbury Community College, 1990)
  • Greater Boston Gospel Academy Award (Roxbury Community Presbyterian Church, 1995)
  • Millennium Award (Boston Orchestra and Chorale, 2001)
  • Gospel in Majesty Award (Tri-ad Veterans League, Inc. and Magnolia Society, 2002)
  • African Americans Making History Today: Bearers of the Flame/Passing the Torch Award (The Students of the Boston Renaissance Charter School, 2003)
  • Community Fellows and Reflective Practice Alumni Award 2006, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
  • Anna Bobbit Gardner/Coretta Scott King Lifetime Achievement Award 2005
  • Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston declares "Calvin Hicks Day" (date: February 15) 2009[6]
  • Drum Major Award from the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Association, 2010
gollark: Fire is more backwards-compatible and uses simpler tooling.
gollark: No.
gollark: The hilarity of a joke is directly proportional to the square of its length, you know.
gollark: (note: I like Linux and this is a joke, do not potato me)
gollark: What do Linux users do to change a lightbulb?First, a user creates a bug report, only for it to be closed with "could not reproduce" as the developers got to it in the day. Eventually, some nights later, someone realizes that it is actually a problem, and decides to start work on a fix, soliciting the help of other people.Debates soon break out on the architecture of the new lightbulb - should they replace it with an incandescent bulb (since the bulb which broke was one of those), try and upgrade it to a halogen or LED bulb, which are technically superior if more complex. or go to a simpler and perhaps more reliable solution such as a fire?While an LED bulb is decided on, they eventually, after yet more debate, deem off-the-shelf bulbs unsuitable, and decide to make their own using commercially available LED modules. However, some of the group working on this are unhappy with this, and splinter off, trying to set up their own open semiconductor production operation to produce the LEDs.Despite delays introduced by feature creep, as it was decided halfway through to also add RGB capability and wireless control, the main group still manages to produce an early alpha, and tests it as a replacement for the original bulb. Unfortunately it stops working after a few days of use, and debugging of the system suggests that the problem is because of their power supply - the bulb needs complex, expensive, and somewhat easily damaged circuitry to convert the mains AC power into DC suitable for the LEDs, and they got that bit a bit wrong.So they decide to launch their own power grid and lighting fixture standard, which is, although incompatible with every other device, technically superior, and integrates high-speed networking so they can improve the control hardware. Having completely retrofitted the house the original lightbulb failed in and put all their designs and code up on GitHub, they deem the project a success, and after only a year!

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-17. Retrieved 2009-11-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Making an impact as a responsible global citizen", The Times–Delphic, April 23, 2012.
  3. "Calvin L. Hicks" Archived 2018-05-06 at the Wayback Machine, New England Conservatory.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-11-03. Retrieved 2009-11-15.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. "Education Makers — Calvin Hicks", The History Makers.
  6. "Calvin Hicks Memorial Service", New England Conservatory, November 15, 2013.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.