Renowned African American poet and writer Paul Laurence Dunbar is a product and recorder of the struggle for freedom in nineteenth century America. Dunbar was born in 1872 of parents who had been enslaved. His father, on escaping from bondage had joined the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Infantry, an all Black Civil War unit.
Dunbar became a highly regarded writer in his hometown and was invited to perform at various clubs and events. In 1892, at the age of twenty, he published his first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy.
Since working as a writer didn't bring in enough income for Mr. Dunbar to live, he worked as an elevator operator. He sold his books for one dollar each to the people who rode his elevator, barely earning enough to pay for the cost of publishing them. Still, his poems struck a chord in people's hearts and little by little Dunbar's fame grew.
William Dean Howells review of Dunbar's second book Majors and Minors in Harper's Weekly made the writer a national figure overnight. A republication of his first two works by Dodd Mead under the title Lyrics of a Lowly Life won wide acclaim.
Dunbar married Alice Ruth Moore, a feminist writer from New Orleans after a two year pen pal courtship. He also took a job at the Library of Congress. But soon the cough everyone thought was from the dust in the Library was diagnosed as tuberculosis and Dunbar was forced to quit his library job and devoted all of his time to writing and giving recitals.
Dunbar often wrote about civil rights issues just as DuBois, Booker T. Washington, and Charles Chesnutt did. One of his most famous depictions of this struggle was his poem "We Wear the Mask."
We Wear the Mask
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them see only us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise
We wear the mask!
All too soon, Dunbar's fame eclipsed his health and he was able to do no more. In 1906 at the age of 33, Dunbar died leaving a legacy of writing that is studied the world over, including four novels, a variety of song lyrics, thirteen books of poetry and four volumes of short stories.
For a biography of Paul Laurence Dunbar, his poetry, and more photographs you can access the Paul Laurence Dunbar Homepagehttp://www.udayton.edu/~dunbar/
and the Ohio Historical Society