Today is the birthday of Paul Laurence Dunbar, African American poet, novelist, and playwright. Dunbar, though he had a short career, achieved a good deal of success mostly through his poetry.

Born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, Paul was the child of an emancipated mother and a father who has escaped slavery just before the end of the Civil War. The marriage wasn’t happy though and the couple separated after the birth of Paul’s sister. Matilda Dunbar raised her children with the help of her extended family in Dayton. 

Paul, despite his disadvantaged background, was a child prodigy. His mother taught him to read using her Bible, thinking he might grow up to become a Methodist minister. But Paul caught the poetry bug early. Reportedly at age six he had composed his first poem, giving his first poetry recital at age nine. 

Dunbar in the late 1880s, was the only African-American student at Central High School in Dayton. Instead of being beat-down and forced out of school as one might expect, Dunbar was well-liked and flourished. During his high school years, he was elected president of the literary society, participated in the debate club, and was the editor of the school newspaper. Orville and Wilbur Wright were classmates of Paul’s and Orville and Paul became friends. The friendship with the Wright brothers would be life-long. I like to think that maybe Paul helped Orville with his writing and Orville helped Paul with math, but that’s merely wishful speculation.

During high school, at age 16 in 1888, two of Dunbar’s poems were published in the local Dayton newspaper The Herald. He tried to publish his own small paper for awhile aimed at the local African American population. With the help of the Wright Brothers, Dunbar’s The Tattler lasted six weeks. 

Once high school was over, Dunbar hoped to study law, but the family’s financial status wouldn’t allow such an endeavor. Instead, Dunbar took employment as an elevator operator. Outside of his high school’s bubble, Dunbar faced much more discrimination on a daily basis. 

But that never kept Dunbar from writing his poems in his spare time. He began to experiment with dialect poems and when he had a substantial collection, was able to get it published by the United Brethren Publishing House in 1893. The collection called Oak and Ivy consisted of both traditional verse and Dunbar’s dialect poems. 

Dunbar quickly made back the money he had put into the venture by selling copies to passengers on his elevator. There’s no doubt his sales tactics would have included reciting poems to the passengers to entice them to buy. 

As Dunbar’s fame and patrons grew, he branched out into writing short stories and novels. His work frequently included both black and white characters, though not always together. His poems and essays would be published in top magazines and periodicals such as Harper's Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Denver Post and he would compose lyrics for the first full-length, all-black Broadway musical, In Dahomey. 

When many of his cultural contemporaries were of mixed race, Dunbar was seen as more purely ‘African’ and stood out for his very dark complexion. 

After a tour in England, he married the love of his life, Alice Moore, a fellow poet from New Orleans. Dunbar said “she was the sweetest, smartest little girl I ever saw" and the two would write poetry together and for one another until Dunbar’s passing at age 33 of tuberculosis. 

 

Paul Laurence Dunbar

 

The moon has left the sky, love, 

The stars are hiding now, 

And frowning on the world, love, 

Night bares her sable brow. 

 

The snow is on the ground, love, 

And cold and keen the air is. 

I’m singing here to you, love; 

You’re dreaming there in Paris. 

 

But this is Nature’s law, love, 

Though just it may not seem, 

That men should wake to sing, love; 

While maidens sleep and dream. 

 

Them care may not molest, love, 

Nor stir them from their slumbers, 

Though midnight find the swain, love. 

Still halting o’er his numbers. 

 

I watch the rosy dawn, love, 

Come stealing up the east, 

While all things round rejoice, love, 

That Night her reign has ceased. 

 

The lark will soon be heard, love, 

And on his way be winging; 

When Nature’s poets, wake, love, 

Why should a man be singing?