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Useni Eugene Perkins (born September 13, 1932; transition May 7, 2023) is an American poet, playwright, activist and youth worker. [1] He is known for his poem "Hey Black Child". [2]
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Useni Eugene Perkins (born September 13, 1932; transition May 7, 2023) is an American poet, playwright, activist and youth worker. [1] He is known for his poem "Hey Black Child". [2]
Useni Eugene Perkins was born on September 13, 1932, in Chicago, Illinois, to Marion Perkins, a sculptor, and Eva Perkins. When Perkins was 11 years old, his father took him to see Shakespeare's Othello performed by Paul Robeson. Perkins credits his father's efforts to expose his young son to the arts as an early major influence on Perkins' writing career. [3]
In 1950 Perkins graduated from Chicago's Wendell Philips High School before going on to earn his B.S. in group social work (1961) and an M.S. in administration (1964) from George Williams College. Shortly thereafter, Perkins began working at the Henry Horner Chicago Boys Club, which launched his lifelong career of social and educational work with youth from low-income urban areas. In 1966, Perkins became the Director and then later the Executive Director of the Better Boys Foundation Family Center in Chicago, a position he held for nearly 20 years (1966–1982). During this time he authored many creative and academic written works detailing experiences from his childhood and his observations as a social worker. [4]
The Chicago Public Library, which houses an extensive archive of Perkins' written works and biographical material, mentions, "In viewing this collection as a whole it is clear that Perkins worked wonders to fuse his professional career as a social worker with his creative expression as a writer. His plays were primarily focused on presenting positive role models and lessons geared toward urban youth." [5] Throughout his career, Perkins was recognized as a social worker, an artist, and a community leader. He was invited to the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs Advisory Board (1984), the Chicago Board of Education Task Force on Gangs (1981), and Illinois Governor James R. Thompson's Special Task Force on Troubled Youth (1980).
Perkins was highly influenced by the Black Arts Movement, which at its peak during the 1960s and 1970s was a cultural program that grew out of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. Perkins was an early and influential activist in the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), the Chicago-based expression of the Black Arts Movement. [6]
Useni Eugene Perkins is the author of "Hey Black Child", a poem that has been well-known in Black American households since the mid 1970s. The poem was originally a song that was performed during The Black Fairy, a play written by Perkins in 1974. Following the play's success, Perkins' brother Toussaint Perkins published a poster with the lyrics to "Hey Black Child", but only cited Perkins' first name "Useni" on the poster. This may have led to some confusion as the poem has been incorrectly attributed to Maya Angelou and Countee Cullen. In 2017, Perkins published a children's book with an illustrated version of the poem. [7]
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize.
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Eugene W. Jackson II was an American child actor who was a regular of the Our Gang short series during the silent Pathé era.
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Haki R. Madhubuti is an African-American author, educator, and poet, as well as a publisher and operator of black-themed bookstore. He is particularly recognized in connection with the founding in 1967 of Third World Press, considered the oldest independent black publishing house in the United States.
Henry Dumas was an American writer and poet. He has been called "an absolute genius" by Toni Morrison, who as a commissioning editor at Random House published posthumous collections both of his poetry, Play Ebony, Play Ivory, and his short stories, Ark of Bones, in 1974.
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Eugene B. Redmond is an American poet, and academic. His poetry is closely connected to the Black Arts Movement and the city of East St. Louis, Illinois.
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Hilda Worthington Smith was an American labor educator, social worker, and poet. She is best known for her roles as first Director of the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers in Industry and as a co-founder of the Affiliated Schools for Workers, although she also had a long career in government service supporting education for underserved groups including women, laborers, African-Americans and the elderly.
Abena Joan Brown (1928-2015) was an African-American businesswoman and theater producer who founded the Creative Arts Foundation in Chicago to enable black artists to work. Known as the "mother of Chicago's black arts community", she received honors and awards for her work in both theater and social programs. Brown was inducted into the Chicago Women's Hall of Fame and interviewed as a subject of the archival program The HistoryMakers.
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Marion Marche Perkins was an American sculptor who taught and exhibited at Chicago's South Side Community Art Center and exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago. Perkins is widely considered an important artist of the Chicago Renaissance.
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