Arna Bontemps was born in 1902 in Alexandria, La., but his family relocated to Watts, Ca. as part of the Great Migration. In 1924, he got a teaching job at the Harlem Academy in New York. He arrived during the Harlem Renaissance and went on to write award-winning poetry and fiction. He later wrote children's books, attained his Master's degree in Library Science, and served as the head librarian at Fisk University for 21 years. This is his story.