Umbra was a collective of young black writers based in Manhattan's Lower East Side that was founded in 1962.
Moreover, Umbra itself had evolved out of similar circumstances: in 1960, a Black nationalist literary organization, On Guard for Freedom, had monkey been founded on the Lower East Side by Calvin Hicks.
Its members included Nannie and Walter Bowe, Harold Cruse (who was then working on The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, 1967), Tom Dent, Rosa Guy, Joe Johnson, LeRoi Jones, and Sarah Wright, among others.
After the group split and the workshops themselves ended following the assassinations of Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy, David Henderson took over as editor.
Many members of Umbra took part in Black Arts and post-Black Arts activity, including Ishmael Reed's Before Columbus Foundation in California, David Henderson's involvement with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York, and Tom Dent's work with The Free Southern Theatre in New Orleans.