{{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Otto Leland Bohanan | honorific_suffix = | image = Otto Leland Bohanan 1914.png | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date text|1892-1895}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{Death date and age|1932|12|6|1895}} | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = | language = | education = | alma_mater = Howard University | period = | genre = <!-- or: | genres = --> | subject = <!-- or: | subjects = --> | movement = | notable_works = | spouse = <!-- or: | spouses = --> | partner = <!-- or: | partners = --> | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = }}
'''Otto Leland Bohanan''' (1895-1932) was an African-American poet and composer.<ref name="Singh">{{Cite web |last=Singh |first=Amardeep |title=Otto Bohanan: Poems and Author Profile |url=https://scalar.lehigh.edu/african-american-poetry-a-digital-anthology/otto-bohanan-poems-and-author-profile |access-date=2022-12-12 |website=African American Poetry (1870-1926): A Digital Anthology |language=en}}</ref>
==Biography== Bohanan was born in Washington, D.C., in 1892-1895, the son of Addison and Julia A. Beverly Bohanan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Academy of American Poets |title=Otto Leland Bohanan |url=https://poets.org/poet/otto-leland-bohanan |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=poets.org}}</ref><ref>"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.</ref><ref>"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.</ref>
He graduated from M Street High School in 1910, and attended Catholic University of America for a year before transferring to Howard University.<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |date=December 17, 1932 |title=Otto Bohanan, N.Y. Musician, Buried in D.C. |pages=3 |work=The Baltimore Afro-American |url=https://www.newspaperarchive.com/us/maryland/baltimore/baltimore-afro-american/1932/12-17/page-3/?tag=Bohanon |access-date=2022-12-04}}</ref> At Howard, Bohanan was a member of the fraternity Omega Psi Phi.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Howard University |date=1914-01-01 |title=NIKH: 1914 |url=https://dh.howard.edu/bison_yearbooks/93 |journal=Howard University Yearbooks |volume=1 |pages=45}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv17mrtx3 |title=By Broad Potomac's Shore: Great Poems from the Early Days of Our Nation's Capital |date=2020 |publisher=University of Virginia Press|doi=10.2307/j.ctv17mrtx3 |jstor=j.ctv17mrtx3 |s2cid=241417306 }}</ref> He graduated with a B.A. in 1914.<ref name=":1" />
He was offered a position teaching English at Howard, but instead pursued a career in music.<ref name=":1" /> He opened a music studio in New York City around April 1920.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Modernist Journals {{!}} Crisis. A Record of the Darker Races. Vol. 20, No. 2 |url=https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr513049/ |access-date=2022-12-12 |website=modjourn.org}}</ref> In 1928, Bohanan received an MA from Teachers College at Columbia University.<ref name=":0"/> At Columbia, he joined Kappa Delta Pi.<ref name=":1" />
In 1931, Bohanan married Florence Dulcia Coffer, a public school teacher, in Greenwich, Connecticut.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Marriage Records |url=https://www.ctatatelibrarydata.org/marriage-records/ |access-date=December 14, 2022 |website=Connecticut State Library}}</ref> At the time of his death, Bohanan was a teacher of music at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ylcEAAAAMBAJ&dq=otto%20bohanan%201930&pg=PA109 |title=The Crisis |date=April 1930 |publisher=The Crisis Publishing Company, Inc. |language=en}}</ref>
He died on December 6, 1932, in New York City and was buried in Washington, D.C.<ref name=":1" />
==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."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Howard University |date=1915-01-01 |title=NIKH: 1915 |url=https://dh.howard.edu/bison_yearbooks/95 |journal=Howard University Yearbooks |volume=2}}</ref> 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).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=United States Work Projects Administration |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ljEGAQAAIAAJ |title=An Anthology of Negro Poetry |last2=Wormley |first2=Beatrice F. |publisher=United States Work Projects Administration |year=1937 |editor-last=Wormley |editor-first=Beatrice F. |edition=2nd |location=New Jersey |language=en |editor-last2=Carter |editor-first2=Charles W.}}</ref>
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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Pearl of Omega - This is Alpha Chapter #16 |url=http://www.thepearlofomega.org/thisisalphachapter16 |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=www.thepearlofomega.org}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |title=au="Bohanan, Otto L." - Search Results |url=https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au=%22Bohanan,%20Otto%20L.%22 |access-date=2022-12-12 |website=www.worldcat.org}}</ref>
==External links== {{Wikisource author-inline|wslink=Otto Leland Bohanon|title=Otto Bohanon|list= * "The Dawn's Awake!" * "The Washer-Woman" }}
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bohanan, Otto}} Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century African-American writers Category:African-American poets Category:Howard University alumni Category:African-American composers Category:1895 births Category:1932 deaths