Later Years
After retiring from Fisk University in 1966, Bontemps worked at the University of Illinois (Chicago Circle). He moved to Yale University, where he served as curator of the James Weldon Johnson Collection.
Through his librarianship and bibliographic work, Bontemps became a leading figure in establishing African-American literature as a legitimate object of study and preservation.
Bontemps died June 4, 1973, in Nashville, from a myocardial infarction (heart attack), while working on his autobiography.
Read more about this topic: Arna Bontemps
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“Come Vitus, are we men, or are we children? Of what use are all these melodramatic gestures? You say your soul was killed, and that you have been dead all these years. And what of me? Did we not both die here in Marmaros fifteen years ago? Are we any the less victims of the war than those whose bodies were torn asunder? Are we not both the living dead?”
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