15 Facts About Larry Neal

Larry Neal or Lawrence Neal was an American writer, poet, critic and academic.

Larry Neal was a notable scholar of African-American theater, well known for his contributions to the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Larry Neal was a major influence in both New York and Chicago, pushing for black culture to focus less on integration with White culture, rather than celebrating its differences within an equally important and meaningful artistic and political field, thus celebrating Black heritage.

Larry Neal's parents had a strong influence on his later works.

Larry Neal's father had less than a high school education but was "exceptionally well-read" and his mother instilled in him a love of the arts.

Larry Neal graduated from Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia in 1956.

Larry Neal later graduated from Lincoln University in 1961 with a degree in history and English, and then received a master's degree in 1963 from the University of Pennsylvania in Folklore.

In 1963, Larry Neal was a professor for Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia for a brief period, before landing a job in New York as a copywriter in 1964 for Wiley and Sons.

From 1968 to 1969, Larry Neal taught at the City College of New York.

Larry Neal wrote and produced two major plays, The Glorious Monster in the Bell of the Horn and In an Upstate Motel.

Larry Neal's essays dealt with social issues, aesthetic theory, literary topics, while his poetry focused more on African-American mythology, history, and language.

Larry Neal uncovered Ed Bullins's plagiarism of Albert Camus's 1949 play The Just Assassins.

At Howard University in Washington DC, Neal held the Andrew W Mellon Chair in humanities.

In 1965, Larry Neal married Evelyn Rodgers, a chemist; they had one adopted son, Avatar.

Larry Neal died from a heart attack on January 6,1981, aged 43, at a theater workshop in Hamilton, New York.