TWA Poet: Paul Laurence Dunbar

1872-1906

It’s the birthday of the poet and short story writer Paul Laurence Dunbar, born in Dayton, Ohio (1872). He was the one of the first African-American writers to gain popular recognition for his work. His father was a slave who had fled the South on the Underground Railroad and later fought in the Civil War as a Union soldier. His mother had been a slave …