Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), was born in Dayton, Ohio to parents who at the time, were newly freed slaves. Dunbar expressed a prodigious ability for poetry at the tender age of six. He grew up to excel in secondary school, becoming class president and editing the school newspaper. Later, he began publishing with the help of high school classmates, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who later helped to fund Dunbar's own press, The Dayton Tattler (1). Dunbar's first book of poetry, Oak and Ivy, published in 1893, attracted the attention of such figures as midwestern local colorist, James Whitcomb Riley, and publisher of The Atlantic Monthly, William Dean Howells. Publishing during a time in which remembrances of the antebellum South were becoming quite popular, Dunbar was immediately praised for his ability to capture the aesthetics of the African American folk through his dialect poetry. However, despite the indelible mark his contributions made in African American letters, modern-day critics have condemned Dunbar for having pandered to a white-controlled publishing industry. Still others champion Dunbar for his ability to maneuver within a limiting set of parameters, by publishing more openly critical pieces such as "The Mask," along with subtler, signifying poetry that reflected the nuances of the African American antebellum experience. Though James Weldon Johnson lauded Dunbar as one of the premiere African American poets and one his greatest influences--particularly for his dialect poetry--Dunbar still lamented that he had not achieved as much with his work as he would have liked. The poem above, simply entitled "The Poet," subtly betrays the poet's inner misgivings about his own dilemma (2). However Dunbar may have felt about his life's work, the following video features a modern poet who explains Dunbar's legacy as it has affected him. Question for discussion: Watch the following video after having read some of Dunbar's poetry--particularly those dialect pieces that recall the Antebellum South. Considering the trends evolving at the time Dunbar was writing, such as the emerging "New Negro Movement," in which black artists and poets were discovering new, informed modes of self-expression, how might Dunbar's backward glance at the plantation south complement or inform such movements? How might Dunbar's experience and life work continue to inspire, inform, or influence us today?
James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) enjoyed a long and multifaceted career as essayist, critic, songwriter, poet, diplomat, attorney, educator and politician. In each of these capacities, Johnson dedicated his energies and passions toward the advancement of African Americans. Johnson was born in Jacksonville, Florida to parents of humble, yet noble vocations: his father worked as a headwaiter at the opulent St. James hotel; and his mother was the first female and black teacher at an elementary school in Florida. It was his mother who taught her son her love for music of the European tradition and English Literature (1). At the age of sixteen, Johnson became a student at Atlanta University. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1894, and later received an honorary MA from that institution. Johnson began a career in education with a teaching post at a rural, backwater Georgia school in which he taught the children of freed slaves. Later he continued at Stanton Preparatory College, eventually become its principal at the age of twenty-three. As principal, he broadened the curriculum with courses in English, Algebra, Spanish, and bookkeeping. Johnson left this post to pursue a law career, and passed the Florida Bar, becoming the first African American since Reconstruction to do so.
Perhaps one of the most striking characteristics of James Weldon
Johnson's illustrious career as a member of the African American--and American intelligentsia, was the emphasis he placed on the folk.While
still a young man, Johnson went to rural Georgia, where he made his
first acquaintance with the children of former slaves. Gates, et al.
quotes Johnson as he reflected on the experience, saying that "[i]n all
my experience there has been no period so brief that has meant so much
in my education for life as the three months I spent in the backwoods of
Georgia...I was thrown for the first time on my own resources and
abilities. I had my first lesson in dealing with men and conditions in
the outside world...It was this period that marked the beginning of my
psychological change from boyhood to manhood. It was this period which
marked also the beginning of my knowledge of my people as a 'race'"
(qtd. in Gates 791). Such a stance would put Johnson at odds with at least one of the most outspoken cultural leaders philosophers of Africana during this period: W.E.B. Dubois.
By the turn of the last century, Johnson launched a career in activism first through publishing, and founded the newspaper The Daily American. Though the publication went bankrupt only a few years later, Johnson was undaunted. Johnson became the first African American organizer--and later, secretary--of the NAACP, and served as editor and anthologist during the Harlem Renaissance. In this latter capacity he was instrumental in undermining white publishing entities and bringing numerous African American artists and poets to national attention.
Johnson's own literary contributions during this time were generative, and today have been anthologized and studied widely. His collection, God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse, was published in 1922, honors the tradition set forth by the African American 'folk' preacher, and celebrates the unique poetry and art expressed through the sermon.
Respected actor and bass-baritone singer, the late William Warfield recites James Weldon Johnson's "The Creation":
