In 1948, Killens moved to
New York City, where he worked to establish a literary career. He attended writing classes at
Columbia University and at
New York University. He was an active member of many organizations, serving as a union representative to a local chapter of the
National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and joining the
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Around 1950, Killens co-founded with
Rosa Guy and others a writers' group that became the
Harlem Writers Guild (HWG). His first novel,
Youngblood (1954), dealing with a black Georgia family in the early 1900s, was read and developed at HWG meetings in members' homes. In his book, he first coined the expression "kicking ass and taking names". Killens was a founding member of the
Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Killens's second novel,
And Then We Heard the Thunder (1962), was about the treatment of the black soldiers in the military during World War II, when the armed forces were still segregated. Critic
Noel Perrin ranked it as one of five major works of fiction of World War II. In
The Cotillion; or, One Good Bull Is Half the Herd (1971), Killens explored upper-class African-American society. According to Kira Alexander, "On June 7, 1964, Killens reached his largest audience when his essay 'Explanation of the "Black Psyche" was published in the
New York Times Sunday Magazine." He produced five further articles, which were published in his 1965 collection ''Black Man's Burden''. Named in the author's honor,
The Killens Review of Arts & Letters is published twice a year by the Center. ==Personal life==