Steve Cannon

Steve Cannon founded A Gathering of the Tribes in 1990, at first as a literary magazine documenting the vibrant culture and work of contemporary artists and writers of the Lower East Side. The first issue (900 copies) was published in 1991 on a Xerox machine.  

By 1993 Tribes quickly grew into a salon, art gallery, and small press; a non-profit multi-cultural cross-disciplinary arts organization, which Steve Cannon ran from his home (a three story-brownstone) in New York’s Lower East Side, on Avenue C and East 3rd Street, to be exact.

The organization hosted numerous exhibitions, supporting a many notable artists, writers and musicians such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, Billy Bang, D.J. Spooky, David Henderson, Louis Elaine Griffith, Eileen Myles, Patricia Spears Jones, Quincy Troupe, Butch Morris, John Farris, Bob Holman, Ishmael Reed, Billy Bang, Max Blagg, Carl Hancock Rux, David Hammons, and countless others.  

Steve Cannon was one of 13 children, born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1935. He moved to New York City in 1962 after receiving his PhD in World History from the London School of Economics. Steve served as a Professor of the Humanities at Medgar Evers College for many years.  

In 1969 Cannon penned the novel Groove, Bang and Jive Around published by Olympia Press (Maurice Girodias), which author Ishmael Reed called the precursor to rap and author Darius James called in the New York Press "an underground classic of such legendary stature that New York's black cognoscenti have transformed the work into an urban myth.” It sold 150,000 copies in the first year of publication.  

Cannon, along with Joe Johnson and Ishmael Reed, began an independent publishing house that focused on multicultural literature in the 1970s called Reed, Cannon and Johnson. In 1973 he also collaborated with Reed to interview the first Black sci-fi writer, George S. Schuyler, for Yardbird II, Reed's own publication.  

Cannon met his friend, artist David Hammons, on a park bench in the 1970s. The two have collaborated on certain works, including Invisible Paintings, where he traced Cannon's painting collection with pencil and then removed the physical works. Hammons once bottled Cannon's voice speaking poems. Cannon has written poems about Hammons’ work and made public appearances for him.  

In the late 80’s he suffered loss of his eyesight to glaucoma. Shortly after losing his eyesight, he retired from teaching, founded A Gathering of the Tribes, and converted a portion of his home into an art gallery and open-door salon, and the rest is history.