Avery Brooks reading Henry Dumas – CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

Avery Brooks, known to some as Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is seen reading from Henry Dumas' Goodbye, Sweetwater. Dumas was involved with Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's Upward Bound program, and worked with Eugene Redmond, distinguished Emeritus Professor of English at SIUE and poet of the Black Arts Movement. Dumas died in 1968 at the age of 33, shot to death by New York City Transit Police.

In 1976, Henry Dumas won the Black Scholar magazine literary contest for his short story "Thalia," selected by James Baldwin and Joyce Ladner. But he died before much of his work was published. Eugene B, Redmond worked to get Dumas' poetry, novel, and short stories published posthumously. A near complete collection of Dumas' writing was published in 1988: Goodbye, Sweetwater: New & Selected Stories. Avery Brooks was a member the Eugene B. Redmond Writers Club, a group that Redmond created to foster and inspire poetry and the arts in East St. Louis. Brooks himself is a tenured professor of Theatre Arts at Rutgers University, and was Artistic Director for the National Black Arts Festival from 1993 to 1996.

Written by Sarah Prindle, Humanities & Fine Arts Librarian, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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