John Oliver Killens photographed by Carl Van Vechten, June 8, 1954.

Coined as the spiritual father of the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, John Oliver Killens was an African-American fiction writer who was born January 14, 1916 in the historic Pleasant Hill neighborhood of Macon, Georgia. He was a Pulitzer Prize nominee for his novels, “And Then We Heard the Thunder” (1962) and “The Cotillion; or One Good Bull Is Half the Herd” (1971). Moreover, he was one of the founding members of the Harlem Writers Guild in 1950, along with Walter Christmas, John Henrik Clarke, Rosa Guy and Willard Moore.

Today, the Harlem Writers Guild still exists as one of the oldest African-American literary organizations. It was created to help critique, nurture and publish African-American authors who have written fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and screenplays. Some of those writers include Dr. Maya Angelou, Ossie Davis, Paule Marshall, Terry McMillan, Alice Walker, Douglas Turner Ward and an array of others. Starting in 1986, Killens also created the National Black Writers Conference at Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee; and Medgar Evers College in New York City.

As a youngster, John Oliver Killens attended Ballard Normal School, an American Missionary Association academy, which was located in Pleasant Hill on Forest between Walnut Street and Riverside Drive. He graduated in 1933. Ballard Normal School was one of the first secondary education institutes for blacks in the state of Georgia. Later on, he attended Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Florida; Morris Brown in Atlanta, Georgia; and Howard University in Washington, D.C. for his undergraduate college courses. Afterward, he was accepted to study at the Robert H. Terrell Law School in Washington, D.C.

John Oliver Killens, an African-American fiction writer.

After attending law school for a couple of years, he enlisted in the army to fight in World War II. Once he returned to the United States, Killens continued his higher learning by concentrating on writing, rather than law. He used every aspect of his life, from growing up in Macon to serving in the war, to help bring about social and political change as a writer. Although John Oliver Killens was an artist dedicated to serving his people, he was also a family man who married Grace Ward Jones in 1943. They had a son and a daughter named John Charles and Barbara.

Poetic Peace Arts has submitted a proclamation to Macon-Bibb County to declare January 14 as John Oliver Killens Day. The proclamation ceremony will take place on January 17, 2015 at the Tubman Museum on 340 Walnut Street at 2 p.m. The Tubman Museum will have the John Oliver Killens traveling exhibit on display for people to learn more about how Killens used his art to inform the masses about current events and serious issues.