Marita Bonner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Marita Bonner
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| Born | June 16, 1899 |
| Died | December 6, 1971 (aged 72) |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Marita Occomy; Marita Odette Bonner; Marita Odette Bonner Occomy; Marita Bonner Occomy; Joseph Maree Andrew |
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Marita Bonner (born June 16, 1899 – died December 7, 1971) was an American writer. She was also an essayist and a playwright. Marita Bonner is often linked to the Harlem Renaissance. This was a time when African-American art and culture thrived.
She used several other names for her writing. These included Marita Occomy, Marita Odette Bonner, and Joseph Maree Andrew. In 1921, she helped start the Iota chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. This was a group for college women.
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Her Early Life and Education
Marita Bonner was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were Joseph and Anne Noel Bonner. She grew up in a middle-class family with three siblings.
Marita went to Brookline High School. There, she wrote for the school magazine. She was very good at German and Music. She was also a talented pianist.
In 1917, she finished high school. The next year, she started at Radcliffe College. She traveled to campus every day. Many African-American students could not live in dorms then.
At college, she studied English and Comparative Literature. She also continued her German and music studies. Marita was a great student. She started the Radcliffe chapter of Delta Sigma Theta. She also joined many music clubs. She even won the Radcliffe song contest twice.
One of her writing teachers, Charles Townsend Copeland, told her not to be "bitter." This word was often used for writers of color. While studying, she also taught at a high school in Cambridge.
Her Career and Family
After college in 1922, Marita taught at Bluefield Colored Institute in West Virginia. Two years later, she moved to Washington, D.C.. She taught at Armstrong High School until 1930. During this time, both her parents passed away suddenly.
In Washington, D.C., Bonner became friends with Georgia Douglas Johnson. Johnson was a poet and playwright. Her home was a key meeting place for many writers. These artists were part of the New Negro Renaissance movement.
While in Washington, D.C., Marita met William Almy Occomy. They got married and moved to Chicago. This is where Bonner's writing career really took off. After marrying, she sometimes wrote using her married name.
After 1941, Marita Bonner stopped publishing her works. She focused on her family and her three children. She started teaching again in the 1940s. She retired from teaching in 1963.
Marita Bonner died on December 7, 1971. She was 73 years old. She passed away in a hospital due to smoke from an apartment fire.
Her Writings
Marita Bonner wrote many short stories, essays, and plays. She often wrote for The Crisis magazine. This was the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She also wrote for Opportunity. This was the magazine of the National Urban League. She contributed to these from 1925 to 1940.
After her parents died, she wrote her first essay. It was called "On Being Young–A Woman–And Colored" (1925). This essay showed the challenges for black Americans. It especially highlighted the limits for black women in New York. They faced "residential segregation" and "social constraints." This meant they were "shoved aside because of color."
This essay won a contest by The Crisis magazine. It encouraged black women to be smart and overcome problems.
Bonner also wrote many short stories from 1925 to 1927. Some titles include "The Prison-Bound" and "Nothing New." Her stories explored city life. They showed different kinds of people drawn to urban promises.
She wrote three plays. These were The Pot Maker (1927), The Purple Flower - A Play (1928), and Exit, an Illusion (1929). The Purple Flower is her most famous play. It tells a story about black liberation.
Many of Bonner's later works focused on important issues. These included poverty, poor housing, and color discrimination. She showed how city life affected black communities. Bonner often wrote about different black experiences. She did not like making generalizations. She is remembered for showing how different parts of a person's identity, like race and gender, connect.
Sometimes, Bonner used the name Joseph Maree Andrew. For example, she used it for "One Boy’s Story." This short story is about a young black boy growing up in a white town. She might have used this name to honor her father, Joseph.
Impact on the Harlem Renaissance
Marita Bonner made many contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. Her writings talked about struggles outside of Harlem. She strongly emphasized having a clear racial and gender identity.
She spoke out against sexism and racism. She advised black women to gain knowledge to fight unfairness. She also encouraged African Americans to use education and writing. These were tools to overcome inequalities.
Unlike many writers of her time, she focused on issues in Chicago. Several of her short stories showed the challenges for African-American women. They faced barriers when seeking education. They also dealt with discrimination, religion, family, and poverty.
Bonner's work was not always fully recognized. But her focus on both racial and gender identity was very important. In "On Being Young -- A Woman -- And Colored," she explored what it meant to be a black woman. She described it as being a "group within a group." This meant facing challenges as a woman and as a black person. She showed how black women were expected to express anger "gently and quietly." This was true from both white society and black male society.
Legacy
In recent years, less has been written about Marita Bonner. Her work was most studied in the late 1980s.
The Xoregos Performing Company performed her play Exit: An Illusion in 2015. They repeated it in 2015 and 2016. In 2017, Marita Bonner was added to the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
See also
- African Americans
- African-American culture
- African-American history
- African-American literature
- List of African-American writers
