This Day in Black History, Oct. 13: Arna Bontemps Is Born

What Happened

Arna Wendell Bontemps was born on October 13, 1902, in Alexandria, Louisiana. He became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, writing poetry, novels, and children's books that centered Black life and history with dignity and depth. His novel Black Thunder (1936), about the Gabriel Prosser slave rebellion, is considered a landmark of African American literature. But perhaps his most lasting contribution was as head librarian at Fisk University for more than two decades, where he built one of the most important archives of African American history and literature in the country. He understood that telling the story and preserving the story were both acts of resistance.

Why It Still Matters

Arna Bontemps knew that a people without their history are a people without their power. He wrote books that put Black children at the center of their own stories at a time when that was radical. And then he spent decades making sure those stories — and thousands of others — were collected, catalogued, and protected. The archive he built at Fisk is still there. That's a legacy.

Around the Kitchen Table

What books were in your house growing up? Were there books that showed people who looked like you, living lives that felt like yours? Or did you have to go looking for those stories? And when you found them — in a library, a classroom, a relative's bookshelf — what did it feel like to finally see yourself on the page?

Today on Grown Folks Bizness

History and Kinfolk Corner. Arna Bontemps wrote for children because he believed the next generation deserved to know their own story. Today we're talking about what we pass down — the stories, the books, the history we make sure our children and grandchildren carry with them.

Sources

Fisk University · BlackPast · Poetry Foundation

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