Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Paul Lawrence Dunbar, born on 27 June 1872 to a pair of formerly enslaved people, grew up in Kentucky. Paul grew into one of the most influential Black authors in America, internationally hailed for his dialectic poems in famous collections like Lyrics of Lowly Lives (1895) and Majors and Minors (1894).

Still, these dialectic verses only compose a very small part of his canon, replete with essays, short stories, novels, and many standard-English poems. His entire work body is considered among impressive representations of Black people of the century turn. His friend, James Jonshon, noted in his work "Books of American Poetries'': "Dunbar is the very first Nergro-race poet to showcase combined skillful poetic material with great crafting technique, revealing innate distinction in everything he wrote and maintaining high-performance level."

The man actually showed his literary talents from quite an early age - while he was still attending Dayton high school in Ohio. As the only American African in the class, Paul Lawrence Dunbar was elected as the class poet and class president. Two years prior to his graduation, Paul had already written poems in Dayton Herald magazine and worked as an editor for Dayton Tattler - a newspaper for Black people published by his classmate Orville Wright - the inventor of airplanes along with his brother Wilbur.

Years: 1872 - 1906

Most famous works: Lyrics of Lowly Lives, Majors and Minors