Born in
Boston, United States, Hicks wrote for the
Boston Chronicle while still in high school. He graduated from
Drake University. After writing for the
Baltimore Afro-American newspaper, he moved to
New York City where in 1960, he founded and chaired the
On Guard Committee for Freedom, a Black nationalist literary organization on the Lower East Side. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe,
Harold Cruse,
Amiri Baraka, Tom Dent,
Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson,
Archie Shepp, and
Sarah Wright, among others. The organization viewed the liberation of Africa as part of the struggle for Black liberation in the United States. On Guard went on to publish their own newspaper with Hicks as the editor. Hicks was executive director of the Monroe Defense Committee in support of
Robert F. Williams, and was active in the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He was one of the founders of
Umbra Magazine, with poet and writer
Tom Dent. Hicks was also a member of the
Harlem Writers Guild, and active in the
Black Arts Movement, where he is considered to have been one of the primary players. As a freelance writer, his articles appeared in
Freedomways,
New Challenge,
New York Age.
Educational work He worked as an instructor at
Brooklyn College, Richmond College (now known as
College of Staten Island) and
City College of New York. Beginning in 1969, he taught at
Brandeis University, and then at
Goddard College,
Brown University, and at
Roxbury Community College. He was a co-founder of the Black Educators Roundtable in Boston. From 1974 to 1975, he was a graduate fellow at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1984, he graduated from
Cambridge College with a master's degree in the philosophy of education. He was a member of the liberal arts faculty and administration at the
New England Conservatory of Music from 1992 to 2008 and was also on the faculty of the
Longy School of Music. ==Death and legacy==