Born: July 19, 1875, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Died: September 18, 1935, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Known For: Poetry, essays, and activism

Alice Moore Dunbar Nelson grew up in the South in a multicultural Creole community, in which themes of gender, race, and ethnicity are illuminated in her works. Moore graduated from Straight University in 1892, becoming a part of the one percent of first-generation free African Americans to receive a college education. In 1895, Alice Moore-Dunbar began to pursue a career in poetry and short stories. Her first book, Violets and Other Tales was a compilation of poetry and short stories that reflected the experience of mulatto women in American society. Shortly after publishing her first book, Alice began correspondences with Paul Lawrence Dunbar, one of the first influential Black poets in American literature. The two married in 1898 and moved to Washington D.C.

Violets and Other Tales

Publisher: Boston: Monthly Review, 1895.

First published when Alice was twenty years old, Violets and Other Tales is a volume of 29 vignettes containing poems, short stories, and essays. The collection has several themes, including feminism, romantic relationships, religion, and social justice. The praise from this volume led to her poems being published in NAACP’s The Crisis (NAACP), Ebony, and Urban League’s Opportunity magazine in the early years of the Harlem Renaissance.

"I Sit and Sew"

Publisher: Nashville: A.M.E. Church Review, 1918.

During the First World War, Alice saw the war effort as a vessel to end racial violence. Her most famous poem, “I Sit and Sew,” was penned in 1918 and viewed the war from a woman’s perspective. The woman in the poem yearns to fight in the war effort but cannot, so she must idly sit at the homefront and sew. This poem testifies the complex intersectionality of gender and race and its burden for those with a desire to help, in this case, the war effort and in part of something bigger than the societal norms allot for black women.

Mine Eyes Have Seen

Publisher: New York: The Crisis, 1918.

Mine Eyes Have Seen is a one-act propaganda play initially published in the April 1918 edition of The Crisis. The play strives to get African American men to enlist in the Army. Dunbar believes that the war effort granted young African Americans a means of achieving racial equality and national citizenship. The play takes place in a Northern city where three siblings from the South recently moved to seek work after their father was lynched. The play focuses on the younger brother, Chris, whose draft number has been called. He reacts with outrage, refusing to serve in the Army because the United States allows mob violence on its black citizens, so they most likely will not respect the black man's sacrifices made when they participate in the duties of civic responsibility.

Alice Dunbar-Nelson sought to build the United States up as a place for people of diverse races, ethnicities, classes, genders, and sexualities could live freely without prejudice. She proudly wrote in 1916 a poem entitled “I am American,” “I am proud of my past; I hold faith in my future! I am a Negro! I am an American!” She knows that the African American community has just as much claim to the freedoms in America and was willing to continue the fight for those freedoms.

Alice Dunbar-Nelson had secret relationships with women throughout her life, which was not uncommon for middle-class Black women in the early 20th century. Despite the secrecy of these romantic relationships, Black women found community, support, and pleasure with other women before the terms “queer,” “bisexual,” or “lesbian” were used to label these relationships. Alice Dunbar-Nelson sought to build the United States up as a place for people of diverse races, ethnicities, classes, genders, and sexualities could live freely without prejudice. Her most important relationship was with educator and principal of Howard High School, Edwina Kruse.

Passionate about education from young African Americans, Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Edwina Kruse worked at Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware. The high school's rigorous teaching curriculum challenged students to become familiar with recognized classics of Western literature as well as works by Black authors. Together, Kruse and Dunbar-Nelson created a community of Black excellence. In 1920, the two educators, along with the Federation of Colored Women, helped open the State Industrial School for Colored Girls, later named the Kruse School. In this school, young African American girls considered "delinquent" received education and training.