Born in Boston, 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. In 1960, he founded and chaired the On Guard Committee for Freedom. A Black nationalist literary organization in the Lower East Side. Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse, Amiri Baraka, Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, Archie Shepp, Walter Bowe, and Sarah Wright, among others. On Guard participated in protests one being the protest at the United Nations of the American-sponsored Bay of Pigs Cuban invasion and was active in support of the Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba. 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. In typical male chauvinist fashion, Sarah E. Wright was by-passed and her contribution as founder ignored. 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. He worked as an instructor at Brooklyn College, Richmond College 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. He is also a faculty member at the Longy School of Music.
