Alice Dunbar Nelson (1875-1935) was an American poet, journalist and political activist. Born in the South not long after the Civil War, she was a prominent participant in the Harlem Renaissance.
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Today we’re talking about an American poet, journalist and political activist. Born in the South not long after the Civil War, she was a prominent participant in the Harlem Renaissance. Though her accomplishments have been overshadowed by her famous husband; she left a legacy of her own. Let’s talk about Alice Dunbar Nelson
Alice Ruth Moore was born on July 19, 1875 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a formerly enslaved woman, Patsy Wright Moore, and an unknown white father. Alice grew up in the South as a part of the multicultural Creole community, which would later inspire much of her work.
Alice’s mother Patsy, and grandmother, Mary, worked as servants and washerwomen. Together they made sure that Alice and her sister, Leila, were shielded from this work and kept away from their employers’ homes. Patsy and Mary worked tirelessly to ensure Alice and Leila had greater opportunities by giving them an education that Patsy and Mary had not received.
Alice was sent away as a young teenager to Southern University in Baton Rouge. She was a member of the one percent of first-generation free African Americans to receive a college education. She graduated from the prestigious Straight University in New Orleans in 1892 with a teaching qualification. At the age of 17, Alice became an elementary school teacher in the New Orleans public school system.
Three years after graduating, Alice’s first book was published by The Monthly Review. She was just twenty years old. “Violets and Other Tales” was a multi-genre collection of poetry, stories, sketches, and essays rooted in New Orleans Creole society.
It caught the attention of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar. After seeing one of her poems and an accompanying photograph, Paul sent Alice a letter expressing his admiration. The two began an intense courtship that lasted two years. Six months in, Paul declared. “I love you and have loved you since the first time I saw your picture.”
Two years later, Alice moved to New York City, where she worked with writer and activist Victoria Earle Matthews at the White Rose Mission, a settlement home for working-class Black women. Alice continued to write, working on an unpublished collection of stories about the new community in which she found herself. She also got involved in social justice activism.
Alice then moved to Washington DC to join Paul. Unfortunately, their courtship turned violent. Paul had tuberculosis and developed alcoholism from doctor-prescribed whiskey consumption. In November of 1897, in what Paul described as “one damned night of folly,” he raped Alice, leaving her with internal injuries. Five months later, the couple eloped. The marriage lasted four years, and ended as violently as it had begun, with a drunken beating. Alice left, and never returned. Paul tried to woo her back with letters, but she answered only once, with a single word delivered by telegram: No. When he died of tuberculosis in February 1906, Alice found out by reading a notice in the newspaper
In 1902, Alice moved to Wilmington, Delaware, and began to work as a teacher at Howard High School. While there she had an intimate friendship with the school principal Edwina B. Kruse. The relationship with Edwina was said to be one of several important relationships with women Alice had over the course of her life. During this period, she also taught summer sessions at State College for Colored Students and at the Hampton Institute.
For Alice, teaching was both a creative outlet and a form of political engagement. She wrote plays for her students to perform. She shared with her friend W.E.B. DuBois a belief in the transformative power of the classroom for African Americans, and the importance for Black children of stories that centered Black characters. Alice lamented in her essay “Negro Literature for Negro Pupils” that “for two generations we have given brown and black children a blonde ideal of beauty to worship, a milk-white literature to assimilate, and a pearly Paradise to anticipate, in which their dark faces would be hopelessly out of place.”
Alice continued to teach at Howard High School until 1920, when she was fired for her political radicalism.
During her time teaching, Alice married Henry A. Callis, a prominent physician and professor at Howard University, but this marriage was short lived.
In 1916, Alice married again. This time to poet and civil rights activist Robert J Nelson.
Alice was swept up in the cultural and political explosion of the Harlem Renaissance, despite the fact that she had not lived in New York for many years and was still based in Delaware. Her poetry, much of it written earlier, was rediscovered through its appearance in journals and collections like The Crisis, Opportunity, and Ebony and Topaz.
Despite her early reputation as a poet, Alice found her voice more and more as a journalist. She wrote a syndicated column, Une Femme Dit, and contributed a wealth of reviews and essays to newspapers and magazines. She was also an in-demand speaker.
In her diary, Alice was open about her constant struggle for money. She blamed herself for her inability to find stable footing in a field dominated by white men. Her work was often uncredited, unpaid, or both.
From 1913 to 1914, Alice was co-editor and writer for the A.M.E. Review, an influential church publication produced by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. From 1920, she coedited the Wilmington Advocate, a progressive Black newspaper. She also published The Dunbar Speaker and Entertainer, a literary anthology.
Alice supported U.S. involvement in World War I because she saw the war as a means to ending racial violence in America. She wrote propaganda pieces such as Mine Eyes Have Seen, a play that encouraged African American men to enlist in the army.
Alice continued her work writing and fighting for equity. She moved to Philadelphia in 1932, though her health was in decline. On September 18, 1935, she died. She was 60 years old.
After her death, Alice’s relatives sought to preserve her legacy. In 1984, her diary was published, detailing the many facets of Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s life.
As one of only two published journals of 19th-century African-American women, Alice's diary provides useful insight into the lives of Black women during this period. The 1984 edition of her diary, “Give Us Each Day: The Diary of Alice Dunbar Nelson,” can be found at the National Museum of African American History and Culture Library.
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