Biography

Playwright, producer, actor and professor, his brother Frederick was the first African-American officer of the Marines.

He was a prominent black playwright who brought the African American experience to the off-Broadway stage, then to radio and TV as a writer, director, and producer of works that explored race in the United States. He also taught drama and literature, and edited two anthologies of plays.

He won public speaking competitions and scholarships that helped him attend Northwestern University. He received a bachelor's degree and moved to New York, later receiving a master's in dramatic arts from Columbia University and doing postgraduate work at Yale.

He started out as an actor, appearing with Sidney Poitier in an all-black production of Sidney Kingsley's "Detective Story" at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

He served two years in the US Army, mostly in West Germany.

Years later when I had an opportunity to study drama formally, I realized that in my father's church were the basic elements of what was called drama. To this day, in my memory, my father remains the most awesome 'stage' figure I have ever seen. He didn't call himself an actor, but let's face it: black preachers are very effective actors.