Otto Bohanan

Otto Leland Bohanan (1895-1932) was an African-American poet and composer.[1]

Otto Leland Bohanan
Born1895 (1895)
DiedDecember 6, 1932(1932-12-06) (aged 36–37)
Alma materHoward University

Biography

Bohanan was born in Washington, D.C. in 1895, the son of Addison and Julia A. Beverly Bohanan. (Some documents list an alternate birthdate of January 25, 1892.)[2][3][4]

He graduated from M Street High School in 1910, and attended Catholic University of America for a year before transferring to Howard University.[5] At Howard, Bohanan was a member of the fraternity Omega Psi Phi.[6][7] He graduated with a B.A. in 1914.[5]

He was offered a position teaching English at Howard, but instead pursued a career in music.[5] He opened a music studio in New York City around April 1920.[8] In 1928, Bohanan received an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University.[9] At Columbia, he joined Kappa Delta Pi.[5]

In 1931, Bohanan married Florence Dulcia Coffer, a public school teacher, in Greenwich, Connecticut.[5][10] At the time of his death, Bohanan was a teacher of music at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York.[11]

He died on December 6, 1932 in New York City and was buried in Washington, D.C.[5]

Creative career

Bohanan published several poems in the African American magazine, The Crisis, between 1914 and 1919. The 1915 issue of the Howard University Yearbook, NIKH, includes Bohanan's poem "On Rankin Chapel."[12] Two of his poems were included in the influential anthology edited by James Weldon Johnson, The Book of American Negro Poetry (1922). His poems were also anthologized in Readings from Negro Authors: For Schools and Colleges (1931), Robert Kerlin's Negro Poets and Their Poems (1935), and the Work Progress Administration's An Anthology of Negro Poetry (1937).[13]

In parallel with his poetry writing, Bohanan pursued a musical career as a singer and composer. He composed Omega Psi Phi's first fraternity hymn, "Omega Men Draw Nigh," in 1917.[14] Bohanan also had a career as a singer in New York City; he is listed as a performer in the first performance of Harry Lawrence Freeman's 1928 opera, "Voodoo," as staged and broadcast on the radio on WGBS on May 20, 1928. Ten of Bohanan's original musical scores are held in manuscript form at the University of Pennsylvania.[15]

Wikisource logo Works by or about Otto Bohanon on Wikisource:

References
  1. Singh, Amardeep. "Otto Bohanan: Poems and Author Profile". African American Poetry (1870-1926): A Digital Anthology. Retrieved 2022-12-12.
  2. Academy of American Poets. "Otto Leland Bohanan". poets.org. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  3. "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZFW-2R8  : 24 December 2021), Otto L Bohanan, 1917-1918.
  4. "District of Columbia Birth Returns, 1874-1897", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F753-GTL  : 8 September 2021), Bohanan, 1892.
  5. "Otto Bohanan, N.Y. Musician, Buried in D.C." The Baltimore Afro-American. December 17, 1932. p. 3. Retrieved 2022-12-04.
  6. Howard University (1914-01-01). "NIKH: 1914". Howard University Yearbooks. 1: 45.
  7. By Broad Potomac's Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation's Capital. University of Virginia Press. 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctv17mrtx3. JSTOR j.ctv17mrtx3. S2CID 241417306.
  8. "Modernist Journals | Crisis. A Record of the Darker Races. Vol. 20, No. 2". modjourn.org. Retrieved 2022-12-12.
  9. By Broad Potomac's Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation's Capital. University of Virginia Press. 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctv17mrtx3. JSTOR j.ctv17mrtx3. S2CID 241417306.
  10. "Marriage Records". Connecticut State Library. Retrieved December 14, 2022.
  11. Inc, The Crisis Publishing Company (April 1930). The Crisis. The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. {{cite book}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  12. Howard University (1915-01-01). "NIKH: 1915". Howard University Yearbooks. 2.
  13. United States Work Projects Administration; Wormley, Beatrice F. (1937). Wormley, Beatrice F.; Carter, Charles W. (eds.). An Anthology of Negro Poetry (2nd ed.). New Jersey: United States Work Projects Administration.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  14. "The Pearl of Omega - This is Alpha Chapter #16". www.thepearlofomega.org. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  15. "au="Bohanan, Otto L." - Search Results". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2022-12-12.
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