Aarna

Aarna

Arna Wendell Bontemps was born on October 13, 1902, in Alexandria, Louisiana, the son of a Creole bricklayer and schoolteacher. 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." This Bontemps later noted as a formative moment, and he would resent what he saw as an effort to make him forget his heritage. He graduated from Pacific Union College in Angwin in 1923 with an A.B.

In 1924 he accepted a teaching position in Harlem. He married Alberta Johnson, a former student, in 1926; they would eventually have six children. Though his original plan was to obtain his Ph.D. 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.E.B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, and especially Langston Hughes, with whom he frequently collaborated.

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna

Aarna