Calvin C. Hernton Collection

Writer and teacher Calvin Coolidge Hernton (CCH) was born April 28, 1932 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He graduated from Talladega College with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology in 1954. Two years later he took a Master of Arts degree from Fisk in sociology. CCH then spent 1956-58 as a social worker with children before taking on a series of academic appointments at several colleges and universities. On May 28, 1958 he married Mildred Webster and they had one son, Antone.

CCH spent the next several years back in social work and then returned to academe as a writer-in-residence at Central State University before joining the Oberlin College faculty in 1970. CCH spent two years as a Writer-In-Residence at Oberlin College (1970-72) and then became an associate professor in the African American Studies department. In 1980 he was promoted to Professor of African American Studies and Creative Writing, a position he held until his retirement in 1999.

CCH had a long and distinguished career at Oberlin College and in the outside world. With interests in African, Caribbean and African American literature, he was one of the guiding forces in the development of the African American Studies Department at Oberlin, as the department chair from 1996 until his retirement. He was the author of seven books in the fields of sociology, poetry and fiction. He wrote several plays and had numerous scholarly articles and poems published, and was invited frequently to make presentations, lectures and readings at colleges and universities around the world.

CCH died September 30, 2001.