Alice Dunbar Nelson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Alice Dunbar Nelson
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| Born |
Alice Ruth Moore
July 19, 1875 |
| Died | September 18, 1935 (aged 60) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Straight University Cornell University |
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| Spouse(s) | Paul Laurence Dunbar (1898–1906) Henry A. Callis (1910–1916) Robert J. Nelson (1916–1935) |
Alice Dunbar Nelson (born July 19, 1875 – died September 18, 1935) was an American poet, journalist, and activist. She was born in the Southern United States after the Civil War. Alice was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African American art and culture thrived.
Her first husband was the famous poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After he passed away, she married physician Henry A. Callis. Later, she married Robert J. Nelson, who was also a poet and worked for civil rights. Alice became well-known as a poet, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. She also fought for women's rights and edited two collections of writings.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Alice Ruth Moore was born in New Orleans on July 19, 1875. Her mother was a seamstress who had been enslaved, and her father was a white sailor. Her parents were middle-class and part of New Orleans's diverse Creole community.
Alice graduated from Straight University in 1892, which later became part of Dillard University. She then became a teacher in New Orleans at Old Marigny Elementary. She lived in New Orleans for 21 years, where she also studied art and music, learning to play the piano and cello.
Writing and Marriages
In 1895, Alice Dunbar Nelson's first book, Violets and Other Tales, was published. It was a collection of short stories and poems. Around this time, she moved to Boston and then New York City. In New York, she helped start and taught at the White Rose Mission, a home for girls.
She began writing letters to the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. Her work in The Woman's Era newspaper caught his attention. They wrote many letters to each other, even though they had different ideas about how to write about race. In 1898, Alice moved to Washington, DC to be with Paul. They secretly got married that year.
Their marriage was difficult, partly because Paul had health problems. In 1902, Alice left him. They separated but never divorced before Paul Dunbar died in 1906.
Alice then moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and taught at Howard High School for over ten years. She also taught summer classes at State College for Colored Students (now Delaware State University) and at the Hampton Institute. In 1907, she took a break from teaching to study at Cornell University, returning to Wilmington in 1908.
In 1910, she married Henry A. Callis, a doctor and professor at Howard University. This marriage later ended in divorce.
In 1916, she married Robert J. Nelson, a poet and civil rights activist. They worked together on a play called Masterpieces of Negro Experience (1914). She also joined him in local and regional politics. They stayed together for the rest of her life.
Activism and Journalism
From a young age, Alice Dunbar Nelson wanted to help Black women. In 1894, she helped start the Phillis Wheatley Club in New Orleans. She also worked with The Woman's Era, a monthly newspaper. This was the first newspaper for and by African American women. Her work there started her career as a journalist and activist.
Dunbar-Nelson was a strong activist for African Americans' and women's rights, especially in the 1920s and 1930s. While she kept writing stories and poems, she became more involved in politics in Wilmington. She focused more on writing articles about important issues.
In 1914, she helped create the Equal Suffrage Study Club. In 1915, she worked as an organizer for the women's suffrage movement in the Middle Atlantic states. She also worked to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in 1924, but it did not pass Congress.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson worked hard for political change. She was very active in the NAACP. She helped start a reform school in Delaware for African American girls. She also worked for the American Friends Inter-Racial Peace Committee and spoke at rallies against unfair trials.
Journalism Work
From 1913 to 1914, she was an editor and writer for the A.M.E. Review, an important church publication. Starting in 1920, she helped edit the Wilmington Advocate, a newspaper for Black people. She also published The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, a book of writings for a Black audience.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson supported America's involvement in World War I. She believed the war could help end racial violence in America. She organized events to encourage other African Americans to support the war. She wrote about the war in many of her works. In her 1918 poem "I Sit and Sew," she wrote from the view of a woman who felt held back from helping with the war. Since she could not join the war herself, Nelson wrote plays like Mine Eyes Have Seen (1918). This play encouraged African American men to join the army. These works show Nelson's belief that military service could lead to racial equality.
From about 1920, she focused on journalism. She became a very successful columnist, with articles, essays, and reviews in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals. She was also a popular speaker and gave many lectures.
Journalism was a challenging field for women, especially African American women, at that time. In her diary, she wrote about the difficulties, like not getting paid for her articles or not getting proper credit. In 1920, she was removed from teaching at Howard High School because of her political activities. Even though some people supported her, she decided not to return to the school.
In 1928, Nelson became the Executive Secretary of the American Friends Inter-Racial Peace Committee. She also spoke at the American Negro Labor Congress Forum in Philadelphia about peace and its connection to labor. Dunbar-Nelson also wrote columns called "As In A Looking Glass" for the Washington Eagle newspaper from 1926 to 1930.
Later Life
In 1932, she moved from Delaware to Philadelphia when her husband joined the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission. During this time, her health got worse. She passed away from a heart problem on September 18, 1935, at 60 years old. She was cremated in Philadelphia. She was made an honorary member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. Her writings and papers are kept at the University of Delaware.
Her diary, published in 1984, gives a look into her life between 1921 and 1931. It shows what life was like for Black women during that time. Her diary talked about family, friends, health, work problems, travels, and often money difficulties.
Themes in Her Writing
Alice Dunbar-Nelson's writing often talked about the challenges faced by African Americans and women. In essays like "Negro Women in War Work" (1919) and "Politics in Delaware" (1924), she explored the role of Black women in the workforce and education. She also wrote about the antilynching movement. These writings show her role as a social activist.
Dunbar-Nelson believed in equality between all races and between men and women. She thought African Americans should have equal access to education, jobs, healthcare, and other rights. Her activism for racial and women's rights began in the early 1900s. She publicly discussed the women's suffrage movement.
Much of Dunbar-Nelson's writing was about the "color line," meaning the divide between different racial groups. In a piece called "Brass Ankles Speaks," she wrote about the difficulties of growing up mixed-race in Louisiana. She felt alone and not fully accepted by either Black or white communities. She wrote that being multiracial was hard. Many of her writings were rejected because they talked about racism and unfairness. She could publish her work more easily when these themes were less obvious.
Works
- (As editor) Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence: The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of Slavery to the Present Time, 1914.
- "People of Color in Louisiana", 1917, in Journal of Negro History.
- Mine Eyes Have Seen, 1918, a one-act play, published in The Crisis, the journal of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
- (As editor) The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer: Containing the Best Prose and Poetic Selections by and About the Negro Race, with Programs Arranged for Special Entertainments, 1920.
- "The Colored United States", 1924, The Messenger, a literary and political magazine.
- "From a Woman's Point of View" ("Une Femme Dit"), 1926, a column for the Pittsburgh Courier.
- "I Sit and I Sew", "Snow in October", and "Sonnet", in Countee Cullen (ed.), Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets, 1927.
- "As in a Looking Glass", 1926–1930, a column for the Washington Eagle newspaper.
- "So It Seems to Alice Dunbar-Nelson", 1930, a column for the Pittsburgh Courier.
- Various poems published in the NAACP's journal The Crisis, in Ebony and Topaz: A Collectanea (edited by Charles S. Johnson), and in Opportunity, the journal of the Urban League.
- Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar-Nelson, ed. Gloria T. Hull, New York: Norton, 1984.
Images for kids
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Alice Dunbar Nelson
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An excerpt from The Woman's Era.
See also
In Spanish: Alice Dunbar-Nelson para niños
