Career
After graduation, he went to New York to teach at Harlem Academy. In New York Bontemps became an important contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, where he met many lifelong friends including Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. Hughes became a role model, collaborator, and dear friend to Bontemps.
He returned to graduate school and earned a master's degree in library science from the University of Chicago in 1943. Bontemps was appointed as head librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. In that position for nearly a quarter of a century, he developed important collections and archives of African-American literature and culture, namely the Langston Hughes Renaissance Collection. He was initiated as a member of the Zeta Rho Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity at Fisk in 1954.
Read more about this topic: Arna Bontemps
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