Carl Hancock Rux - Early Life

Early Life

Born Carl Stephen Hancock in Harlem, New York, Rux's biological mother (Carol Jean Hancock) suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalized shortly after his birth. The identity of his biological father is unknown. After the death of his maternal grandmother Geneva Hancock (née Rux) he entered the New York City foster care system at the age of four. He was legally adopted by his great uncle and aunt, James Henry Rux and Arsula Rux (née Cottrell) at the age of fifteen upon which his surname was legally changed to Rux. As a teenager, Carl Rux was exposed to jazz music by his adoptive parents, including the work of Oscar Brown Jr., John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln. While heavily influenced by jazz music traditions, he also became a member of the Harlem Writers Workshop, a summer journalism training program for inner city youth founded by African American journalists and sponsored by Columbia University and The Xerox Corporation. Unable to decide between music, literature, and theater he entered the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts where he studied both visual art and voice, during which time he sang with the Boys Choir of Harlem and Hezekiah Walker's Love Fellowship gospel choir and took private acting classes with Gertrude Jeanette's Hadley Players and Robert Earl Jones, father of actor James Earl Jones. He is a graduate of Columbia University, and also studied at the American University of Paris as well as the University of Ghana at Legon. After graduating college, Rux wrote theater, film and music criticism for several magazines and publications including Essence magazine, Interview magazine (and later) American Theater magazine. A longtime resident of Fort Greene Brooklyn, Carl Rux worked with the Fort Greene association and New York philanthropist Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel to erect a cultural medallion at the Carlton Avenue home where novelist Richard Wright lived between May and October, 1938 and penned his seminal work, Native Son