Calvin Hernton's fiction and nonfiction are inspired by a radical black consciousness that is an appropriate reflection of his place as an American writer in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The central themes of his books--sexuality, drug experimentation, black-white racial contacts, and the interrelationship of these aspects within a capitalist society--compose a list of the predominant issues of the era.

Until his work began appearing in print from major publishing houses in the mid-to-late 1960s, Hernton was employed at a series of one-year instructor-level faculty appointments at a variety of Southern universities: Benedict College in South Carolina from 1957 to 1958; Edward Waters College in Florida from 1958 to 1959; the University of Alabama from 1959 to 1960; Louisiana's Southern University from 1960 to 1961. In each of these appointments, before settling into his current tenured position as professor of Black Studies and Creative Writing, Oberlin College, Hernton was hired to teach classes in sociology...