Arna bontemps biography essay
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Bontemps, Arna 1902–1973
Novelist, lyrist, editor, professional, librarian
At a Glance…
Louisiana Roots, California Childhood
Harlem Renaissance Star
Explored Children’s Lives
Selected Writings
Sources
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Arna Bontemps
Arna Wendell Bontemps was born on October 13, 1902, in Alexandria, Louisiana, the son of a Creole bricklayer and a schoolteacher. At age three, he and his family moved to Los Angeles after his father was mortally threatened by two drunk white men. Bontemps grew up in California and was sent to the San Fernando Academy boarding school with his father’s instruction to not “go up there acting colored.” Bontemps later noted this as a formative moment, and he would resent what he saw as an effort to make him forget his African American heritage. He graduated from Pacific Union College in Angwin in 1923 with a bachelor of arts degree.
In 1924, Bontemps accepted a teaching position in Harlem, New York. He married Alberta Johnson, a former student, in 1926; they would eventually have six children. Though his original plan was to obtain his PhD in English, he accepted teaching positions to support his family. While teaching in Harlem, he became closely associated to figures from the Harlem Renaissance, befriending major artists such as Countee Cullen, W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and especially Langston Hughes, with whom he frequently collaborated.
Bontemps first published his poems in Crisis in 1924,
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Arna Bontemps, Documenting the Harlem Renaissance
In the introduction to the poetry anthology Caroling Dusk, Countee Cullen described the poet Arna Bontemps as being, "...at all times cool, calm, and intensely religious yet never "takes advantage of the numerous opportunities offered them for rhymed polemics."
Bontemps might have published poetry, children's literature, and plays during the Harlem Renaissance but he never gained the fame of Claude McKay or Cullen.
Yet Bontemps work as an educator and librarian allowed the works of the Harlem Renaissance to be revered for generations to come.
Early Life and Education
Bontemps was born in 1902 in Alexandria, La., to Charlie and Marie Pembrooke Bontemps. When Bontemps was three, his family moved to Los Angeles as part of the Great Migration. Bontemps attended public school in Los Angeles before heading to Pacific Union College. As a student at Pacific Union College, Bontemps majored in English, minored in history and joined the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
The Harlem Renaissance
Following Bontemps' college graduation, he headed to New York City and accepted a teaching position at a school in Harlem.
When Bontemps arrived, the Harlem Renaissance was already in full swing. Bontemps' poem "T