Arna Bontemps was a poet with many talents. Arna had multiple degrees in various subjects, such as history, science, and literature. He was a skilled poet and writer. He wrote many poems as well as novels. He also had many accomplishments such as becoming a poet, critic, historian, novelist, and a librarian in his lifetime.
Like many intellectuals, Bontemps ended up in New York during the time of the Harlem Renaissance. After graduating, Ana moved to New York, and was offered a teaching position at the Harlem Academy in 1924. While teaching, he started writing poems. Johnson states that, Arna later began publishing his poems in a magazine called Crisis and Opportunity; a magazine company that supported African American writing (Johnson 1).
Bontemps decided to step outside of his bounderies and write novels. He began to publish fiction novels, as well as more poetry. His first novel, that …show more content…
It retells a rebellion that took place in the 1800’s in Virginia, led by Gabriel Prosser, a field worker and coachman. Prosser’s attempted to conduct a slave army, and fight against the whites. A slave within the group betrayed Prosser causing the rebellion to end, and Prosser was lynched. In Bontemps version, whites were forced to admit that slaves were humans, and had a promising life. Despite the many reviews for Black Thunder, the earnings were not enough to support his family, so he moved back to Chicago.
He returned to the University of Chicago, we he earned a master’s degree in library science in 1943. He was appointed as head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville. He developed archives of African American literature and culture. After retiring from Fisk, Bontemps continued to write novels, but children book instead. He was discouraged due to the lack of acknowledgement, and money he was making. He died of a heart attack during his attempt to write his biography.Even so,