American writer, essayist, and playwright Marita Bonner (pic below), born June 16, 1899, is most known for being part of the Harlem Renaissance- the cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem, New York, during the 1920s. She was a frequent contributor to The Crisis (the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and Opportunity (official publication of the National Urban League) between 1925 and 1940. She wrote three plays — The Pot Maker (1927), The Purple Flower – A Play (1928) and Exit, an Illusion (1929).

Bonner is one of the many frequently unrecognized black female writers of the Harlem Renaissance who resisted the universalizing, essentialist tendencies by focusing on atypical women, rather than on an archetypal man, such as the New Negro, which can be seen in her earliest works. (above pic by Archibald John Motley Jr.)