Life
Marita Bonner was born in Boston to Joseph and Anne Noel Bonner. She was one of four children and lived in a middle class community in Massachusetts. Marita attended Brookline High School where she contributed to the school magazine, The Sagamore. She also was a very talented pianist and excelled in Music and German. In 1917, she graduated from Brookline High School and in 1918 enrolled in Radcliffe College where she commuted to campus because many African American students were denied dormitory accommodations. While in college she majored in English and Comparative Literature. In addition to her majors, she continued to study German and musical composition. In addition to her studies, Bonner was a charter member of a chapter of the black sorority, Delta Sigma Theta and taught at a high school in Cambridge.
After finishing her schooling in 1922, Bonner continued to teach at Bluefield Colored Institute in West Virginia. Two years later, she took on a position at Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C., until 1930. While teaching at Armstrong High school, Bonner's mother and father both died suddenly. While in Washington, Maria became closely associated with poet, playwright, and composer Georgia Douglas Johnson. Johnson's "S" street salon was an important meeting place for many of the writers and artists who were involved in the New Negro Renaissance. While living in Washington, Marita met William Almy Occomy. Bonner and Occomy got married and moved to Chicago where Bonner's writing career took off. She began teaching again in the 1940s and finally retired in 1963.
Bonner died in 1971 from smoke inhalation complications at a hospital after her apartment caught fire. She was 73.
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