When was arna bontemps born

At age three he and his family moved to Los Angeles after his father was 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. In he accepted a teaching position in Harlem, New York. He married Alberta Johnson, a former student, in ; 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.

Luckily, it was while teaching in Harlem that he would become closely connected to the Harlem Renaissance and befriend major artists such as Countee Cullen , W. Bontemps first published his poems in Crisis in , and also later in Opportunity, both literary magazines that supported the work of young African American writers. In and Bontemps win three prizes for his poetry from these publications. His first book of fiction was God Sends Sunday , the story of a fast-living black jockey named Little Augie.

The book received mixed reviews: praise for its significance as a book by a black author but also criticism for its emphasis on the seamier side of black life. The novel, published in , was finished in his father's California house. At the end of the school year Oakwood dismissed Bontemps, a reaction to the combination of his radical politics, out-of-state visitors, his personal book collection, and the school's own conservative and religious views.

In Bontemps received a master's degree in library science from the University of Chicago. He was appointed a librarian at Fisk University, a position he held until his retirement in , followed by honorary degrees and professorships at the University of Illinois and Yale University, and a return to Fisk as a writer in residence.

He died June 4, , from a heart attack, while working on his autobiography. Though Sterling A. Brown and Aaron Douglas noted that his writings have not received the critical attention deserved, his work as a librarian and historian point to him as a great chronicler and a preserver of the documents of black cultural heritage. The first fellowship enabled him to research Chariot in the Sky , a fictionalized but historically accurate account of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, as seen through the eyes of a young boy.

Near the end of his career at Fisk, Bontemps was in demand as a lecturer and accepted an offer to teach at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, during a sabbatical. Bontemps returned to Fisk as a writer-in-residence before his death on June 4, Fleming, Robert E. Boston: G. Hall, Jones, Kirkland C. But at age 3, Bontemps moved with his family to California, escaping the racism of the South.

This exposure triggered a lifelong fascination with Southern culture, which Bontemps held for the rest of his life. Bright-eyed, young, and idealistic, he moved to Harlem, New York to teach. What a city! What a world! Louis Woman.