Mr. Hercules settled in Harlem, where he started a clothing manufacturing business, without success, and worked in the insurance industry. He also became involved in the nascent black nationalist movement. After falling under the spell of Lewis Michaux, the bookstore owner and orator, he resolved to write.
His first novel, "Where the Hummingbird Flies" (1961), dealt with colonial oppression in Trinidad. "I Want a Black Doll" (1967), his next novel, took interracial marriage as its subject. His third, "On Leaving Paradise" (1980), was a picaresque tale of a young man who leaves Trinidad for England. He also wrote a work of history, "American Society and the Black Revolution" (1972).
]]>From the New York Times of April 26, 1992, "The first event will be a concert on Wednesday at 1 P.M., when the Manhattan String Quartet will perform in Ives Auditorium. The ensemble will be accompanied by a poetry reading and discussion with Mr. Yevtushenko of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. The two men were close friends, and the composer used several of Mr. Yevtushenko's poems, including "Babi Yar," as themes for his work. The poet will conduct a town meeting on the current crisis in Russia from 8 to 10 Wednesday evening.
Another concert will be held on Thursday at 8 P.M., and Mr. Yevtushenko's film, "Stalin's Funeral," will be screened on Friday at 3:30 P.M."
]]>Reservation of the lot for its purpose had been recorded in the summer of 1645. The first decedent "of mature age" was duly interred there in 1652. But it is the ordinance of June 6, 1653 that legally sets the place apart and declares, "It shall ever bee for a Common Buriall place, and never be impropriated by any."
A later record notes the appointment of the sexton —
Whose work is to order youth in the meeting-house, sweep the meeting-house, and beat out dogs, for which he is to have 40s. a year : he is also to make all graves ; for a man or woman he is to have 4s., for children, 2s. a grave, to be paid by survivors .
17th century New London was yet a rough and isolated corner of early colonial Connecticut. Private interments were not customary, and this was the only common burial place.
Few of the early graves ever had inscribed markers. The New London of that time possessed no skilled stonecutters, and those early planters simply had not the means. A few surviving families did, however, seek to address the deficiency in later years. At least four stones dated in the 17th century have been found that could not have been placed before 1720 .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Antientist_Burial_Ground,_New_London
http://web.archive.org/web/20060814013204/http://newlondongazette.com/cemetry.html