Living Legend: Curtis King, Founder of The Black Academy of Arts & Letters
http://www.aframnews.com/html/interspire/articles/236/1/Living-Legend-Curtis-King-Founder-of-The-Black-Academy-of-Arts-amp-Letters/Page1.html
Carmen Watkins
Carmen Watkins is president and CEO of the African-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston. By Carmen Watkins
Published on 03/25/2009
DALLAS- Curtis King, the founder of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, Incorporated (TBAAL) of Dallas, Texas was born December 20, 1951 in Coldwater, Mississippi. His love for theatre and the arts began while a student at Tate County High School. He followed that passion and attended Jackson State University where he was mentored by poet Margaret Walker Alexander, who sent him to Chicago in 1972 for the historic Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL) National Conference to Assess the State of Black Arts and Letters in the United States of America.
DALLAS- Curtis King, the founder of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, Incorporated (TBAAL) of Dallas, Texas was born December 20, 1951 in Coldwater, Mississippi. His love for theatre and the arts began while a student at Tate County High School. He followed that passion and attended Jackson State University where he was mentored by poet Margaret Walker Alexander, who sent him to Chicago in 1972 for the historic Black Academy of Arts and Letters (BAAL) National Conference to Assess the State of Black Arts and Letters in the United States of America.
After earning a master’s degree in theatre from Texas Christian University, in 1974, King taught theatre at Shaw University in 1977 and learned that BAAL went defunct in 1976. With $250.00, King formed the Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters in homage to BAAL on November 23, 1977. Today, TBAAL is the only African American multi disciplined cultural arts organization housed inside a major urban convention center. It occupies 250,000 square feet of space in the Dallas Convention Center.
Known for his artistic and administrative skills and celebrity contacts, King is the recipient of the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer’s Award, Man of the Year Dream Makers Award, Esquire Magazine Register Award, the Dallas Historical Society’s Arts Leadership Award, the Texas Ambassador of Goodwill Award and the World Peace Award in the Arts from the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace in 2004.
In 1997, the Board of Directors of the Academy unanimously voted to change the name to The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, Incorporated.
We salute Curtis King as our Living Legend and invite you to send in who you think will make a good Living Legend and why they should be honored as such to news@aframnews.com.
After earning a master’s degree in theatre from Texas Christian University, in 1974, King taught theatre at Shaw University in 1977 and learned that BAAL went defunct in 1976. With $250.00, King formed the Junior Black Academy of Arts and Letters in homage to BAAL on November 23, 1977. Today, TBAAL is the only African American multi disciplined cultural arts organization housed inside a major urban convention center. It occupies 250,000 square feet of space in the Dallas Convention Center.
Known for his artistic and administrative skills and celebrity contacts, King is the recipient of the Larry Leon Hamlin Producer’s Award, Man of the Year Dream Makers Award, Esquire Magazine Register Award, the Dallas Historical Society’s Arts Leadership Award, the Texas Ambassador of Goodwill Award and the World Peace Award in the Arts from the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace in 2004.
In 1997, the Board of Directors of the Academy unanimously voted to change the name to The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, Incorporated.
We salute Curtis King as our Living Legend and invite you to send in who you think will make a good Living Legend and why they should be honored as such to news@aframnews.com.