Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson wrote about the intersections in her mixed-race identity: Native-American, Caucasian, Black and Creole – in various books (of poetry and prose), as well as in her diary. She was very devoted to writing and determined to be successful, and it didn’t quite work out that way – but she remained true to her goal. In recent years her work has been resurrected – particularly her diary. Women who kept journals were rare, almost unheard of in that era: women were busy with other shit (that was the point?), like having children, keeping a home, washing, cooking, whatever. Not much time left over for contemplation, introspection, quiet time with a pen and a notebook. This is why first-person “artifacts” from women are so precious, so rare. Dunbar-Nelson’s diary is even more of a rarity: I read somewhere that only two diaries written by Black women survived that era, and hers was one of them. It was finally published in 1984, almost 100 years after she was born.
She was born in New Orleans in 1875, just 10 years after the ending of the Civil War. She was in the first generation to be born free. Her mother was a former slave, and her white father worked on the ships coming in and out of New Orleans. She took full advantage of the often meager opportunities available to people of color at the time. She went to college and became a teacher. Her first book of poetry, Violets and Other Tales was published in 1895, when she was just 20 years old.
She married celebrated poet Paul Dunbar (my post on him here), after a lengthy correspondence. She wouldn’t be the first person to be fooled by a correspondence, sucked into the intimacy of that form of communication, only to be shocked and disillusioned by who the correspondent was in person. Dunbar had tuberculosis (he died young), and was a depressed man. He was violent. To put it bluntly, he beat the shit out of her, once so badly she ended up in the hospital. She was an out lesbian, or as “out” as the time permitted, and this, too, was a problem for him. She eventually left him. She lived in Boston, New York, D.C. She co-founded a home for girls. She continued to teach before finally deciding to take a step back, and out of the daily grind, to get her Master’s. She was accepted to Cornell. Her thesis was on John Milton and William Wordsworth (some of her poems in Violets and Other Tales show the influence Wordsworth – and his benign view of nature – had on her. My post on him here. She loved the old forms, like sonnets – another Miltonic influence). I’d love to get my hands on that thesis. It’s an important reminder that culture – all culture, wherever it comes from – belongs to everyone. The past is a rich treasure trove of inspiration for all of us.
As the ‘teens and ’20s unfolded, Dunbar-Nelson devoted more of her time to journalism, writing articles and op-ed columns, addressing the issues facing Black women, looping in those issues to larger national contexts like America’s involvement in WWI. She also got editor gigs. She had a very difficult time as a journalist. First of all, there were very few women journalists, period, let alone Black women. Journalism requires mobility and access. You have to travel to the hot spots, you have to get people to talk to you. This was challenging for her. And yet she stuck at it: I really admire her tenacity. She barely made a dime from writing, something she wrote about over and over again, crankily, in her journal. (hashtag relatable). She worked mainly as a freelance stringer. She wrote regular columns for The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP.
I do want to mention one more thing. In my research into this interesting woman, it became clear that WWI weighed heavily on her mind. She paid very close attention to what was happening with soldiers, particularly Black soldiers who were – at first – shut out from service. As people were getting drafted, there were white Supremacist senators resistant to expanding the draft to include men of color. The Senators made fiery racist speeches about the importance of segregation. But the War Department ignored the Senators, and expanded the draft to include black men. Over 2 million Black men ended up being drafted. Pacifists may not see that as a victory, but in the ‘teens it was a huge victory – both symbolic and actual – in terms of equality. Dunbar-Nelson wrote on the subject at length: She felt so strongly about the issue she wrote a one-act play called Mine Eyes Have Seen (such a great title!). I can’t find any information on whether it was produced or not, but it was published in a magazine. Mine Eyes Have Seen is about the brave soldiers returning from the war, to face racism and often lynching in their home towns. It was a huge issue. The play also predicts what eventually happened: Black veterans would come home and demand full equality. At the close of WWII, decorated veterans returned home to a land that treated them like shit – whereas in Europe they were treated like heroes. This jarring unfair experience saw the slow birth of the formal civil rights movement, which would grow in power over the next decade. You can’t put the genie of freedom back into the bottle.
Dunbar-Nelson died in 1935 at the age of 60.
I thought it would be interesting to post two wildly different poems by this writer. Both are sonnets, her preferred form. She loved the “old” (remember her Master’s thesis subject). I also wanted to post these two since it shows how diverse her interests were. The first one is beautiful and mournful, and very Wordsworthian. The second is a tribute to Madame Curie. It makes me want to cry.
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson should be much more well-known.
Sonnet
I had not thought of violets late,
The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feet
In wistful April days, when lovers mate
And wander through the fields in raptures sweet.
The thought of violets meant florists’ shops,
And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;
And garish lights, and mincing little fops
And cabarets and soaps, and deadening wines.
So far from sweet real things my thoughts had strayed,
I had forgot wide fields; and clear brown streams;
The perfect loveliness that God has made,—
Wild violets shy and Heaven-mounting dreams.
And now—unwittingly, you’ve made me dream
Of violets, and my soul’s forgotten gleam.
To Madame Curie
Oft have I thrilled at deeds of high emprise,
And yearned to venture into realms unknown,
Thrice blessed she, I deemed, whom God had shown
How to achieve great deeds in woman’s guise.
Yet what discov’ry by expectant eyes
Of foreign shores, could vision half the throne
Full gained by her, whose power fully grown
Exceeds the conquerors of th’ uncharted skies?
So would I be this woman whom the world
Avows its benefactor; nobler far,
Than Sybil, Joan, Sappho, or Egypt’s queen.
In the alembic forged her shafts and hurled
At pain, diseases, waging a humane war;
Greater than this achievement, none, I ween.
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