Vegetation and neglect are trying to erase a little-known — but important — link between Louisiana and the Harlem Renaissance, the Black cultural and intellectual movement that blossomed in the 1920s.
Arna Bontemps, a key figure in the movement, was born in Alexandria in 1902. His family lived in the city for only three years before joining the Great Migration to the West Coast. In the 1920s, Bontemps landed in New York, where he wrote acclaimed books, poems and essays. He also befriended other Black luminaries like W.E.B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes.
So his time in Louisiana was short. But in the 1990s, his childhood home was moved from its original location to Third Street in downtown Alexandria, just steps from the Red River. There, it opened as a museum, where it served to recount Bontemps’ life and the Renaissance’s story.
Over time, however, funding became an issue. The museum went to being open by appointment only, then permanently closed. A news story in 2018 featured a plea for community help to maintain it.
Today, it looks like blight. Bushes grow around its historical marker, and the plaques are faded and difficult to read. Overgrowth obscures the front porch and door. Some siding has fallen off and at least one window is missing.
I reached out to Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy’s office. Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Michael Caffery told me that the city owns the lot, but the Arna Bontemps Foundation owns and is responsible for the house.
“We have actively sought to make contact with the point person for the foundation since we entered office in 2022, unsuccessfully,” Caffery told me. “We’ve made numerous attempts to speak to people about it.”
Periodically, people have told city officials they are in contact with the family, but those efforts have generally resulted in little or no improvement, Caffery said.
The Louisiana secretary of state’s website says the foundation’s status as a Louisiana nonprofit was revoked in 2024. The most recent audit on file with the Louisiana legislative auditor is from the fiscal year that ended in July 2017.
My efforts to contact anyone connected to the foundation were also unsuccessful.
All of that is a shame. Arna Bontemps may not have been in Louisiana for long, but he is an important example — among scores of good ones — of how people forged in the Bayou State affected the country and the world through their creative or intellectual expression.
Part of the problem is that Arna Bontemps is not a household name. He’s not Louis Armstrong, Jon Batiste or Irma Thomas. I had never heard of him before reading a recent column by longtime Alexandria journalist Bob Tompkins in the online publication Rapides Parish Journal.
But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t important, or that his house shouldn’t be preserved so that the public will continue to learn Bontemps’ story.
If the foundation can’t do it, the city should step in. If the city is unable, then the state should get involved.
Like all good writers, Bontemps’ words will endure. It’s only right that his house be allowed to do the same.
