Arna Bontemps African American Museum

Arna Bontemps was born in Alexandria on October 13, 1902, into a Louisiana Creole family. When he was about three, his family moved to the Watts district of Los Angeles, part of the Great Migration. He went to New York in 1924 and became a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. His first novel, God Sends Sunday, came out in 1931, and Black Thunder (1936) retold Gabriel's 1800 rebellion against slavery in Virginia. Years later he became a librarian at Fisk University in Nashville, where he died on June 4, 1973.

A turn-of-the-century wood-frame house on Third Street, described as his birthplace, has been restored as a memorial. A museum opened there in 1992 and has been run by the Arna Bontemps Foundation, which has held an annual Jazz on the River fundraiser and joined with the Sankofa Cultural Collective and the Central Louisiana Juneteenth Association. The house sits on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

Listings disagree on what a visitor can do. The Heritage Trail page says the exterior and a marker about his life can be seen and the museum inside is closed, while another Explore Louisiana listing gives Monday to Saturday by appointment, free. The Heritage Trail page gives (318) 704-6462; call before going, and plan for the outside of the house if no one answers.