M. Carl Holman

Who was M. Carl Holman?

M. Carl Holman was an African-American author, poet and playwright. One of his noted works is The Baptizin‘.

Holman grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated magna cum laude from Lincoln University in 1942 and earned a master's degree from the University of Chicago. He then earned another master's degree from Yale University, where he attended on a creative writing scholarship. He taught as an English professor at Clark College for 14 years and also at Hampton University and Lincoln University.

At one time, he edited the Atlanta Inquirer, a weekly black journal at Clark College that reported on civil rights issues in the South. In 1962, he moved to Washington, D.C., to work at the Civil Rights Commission, becoming its deputy director in 1966. In 1968, Ebony listed him as one of the 100 most influential Black Americans. From 1971 to 1988, he served as director of the National Urban Coalition, an organization formed after the riots of 1967, where he advocated for programs in housing, education, employment and economic development.