This online exhibit showcases some of the personal letters of Marcus Bruce Christian, "Poet Laureate of New Orleans Negroes". Marcus Christian was a local businessman, poet, and teacher. He authored "I Am New Orleans and Other Poems", and worked with the Louisiana Negro Writers Project, a program of the Work Projects Administration. During this time he compiled the unpublished manuscript, "The History of the Negro in Louisiana", which can be viewed in our archives.
The following correspondence is mainly between Marcus Christian, Langston Hughes, and Arna Bontemps. Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps were both Harlem Rennaissance poets and writers, known for works such as "The Ways of White Folks" and "Chariot in the Sky: a Story of the Jubilee Singers", respectively.
