By: jamil brown

Birth: February 22, 1938 (place) Chattanooga,Tennessee Parents: Thelma Coleman and Henry Lenoir

Childhood He grew up in buffalo new York He also he attended the University of Buffalo First start writing his own jazz column when he was 14

Adult life and politics taught 35 at university of California. He currently lives in Oakland, California with his wife of more than 40 years. He was also a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, an organization among whose members were some that helped establish the Black Arts Movement.

Awards Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award, National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1975, for The Last Days of Louisiana Red John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award for fiction, 1974; Guggenheim fellowship Langston Hughes Medal for Lifetime Achievement, 1994 National Institute of Arts and Letters honor, 1975

The Free-lance Pallbearers, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), Yellow Back Radio Broke-down, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), Mumbo Jumbo, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), The Last Days of Louisiana Red, Random House (New York, NY), 1974 Work and publications

Summary of freelance pallbearers It’s a miserable and dangerous place ruled for thirty years by Harry Sam who had a to a town full of different people,then the crusading Bukka Doopeyduk leaded rebellion against him.

Good criticism and Bad criticism They sad his writing was like Fredrick Douglas and Reginald Martin. The bad thing is they say his writing is too complicated to reed.

How he view his writings

Influence He was Influence by poets in the Harlem Renaissance like Beat poets He was also influence by Ted Jones was an, jazz poet and painter