Tom Dent was a cultural icon, poet, playwright, and civil rights journalist who impacted a generation of New Orleans activists and artists. The scion of an influential New Orleans family, he was critical to the formation of Free Southern Theater with John O’Neal, and the Dashiki Theater with collaborator Chakula Cha Jua.
For the Black community in New Orleans and beyond, Tom Dent brought a new narrative. While PISAB was evolving, here was a Black writer creating a new story about racial justice organizing and giving people an opportunity to find their voice at the same time.
Tom Dent was often associated with Dillard University where his parents were seen as First Family. He travelled the South, chronicling the Civil Rights Movement for national publications such as the New York Times and Nation magazine and was an investigator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
Dent’s legacy lives on. A 2018 collection of his work, New Orleans Griot: The Tom Dent Reader, edited by Kalamu Ya Salaam, chronicles Dent’s life as a human rights artist and activist. His play, Ritual Murder (1967) was recently revived in a virtual celebration of his career, directed by India Mack.
— Written by Rev. David Billings, PISAB core trainer-organizer, with contribution from Karen Kaia Livers, PISAB Board President
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