Celebrating independence while facing inequality
By Gene Andrew Jarrett / Special To The Washington Post
This month marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Paul Laurence Dunbar. Americans across the country — from his hometown of Dayton, Ohio, to the numerous places where high schools bear his name — will celebrate this African American as a prodigy of his time, rivaled by few ever since.
By the time Dunbar died on Feb. 9, 1906, at the age of 33, he was renowned for being a prolific writer. His network of friends and admirers included Orville Wright, a high school classmate who went on to co-invent the airplane with his brother Wilbur, and Theodore Roosevelt, then governor of New York and, later, president of the United States.
But Dunbar matters not simply because he wrote and recited literature that the educated and the elite enjoyed. Even at a young age, he was a spokesperson for African American experiences, articulating clearly the challenges his people faced since the era of slavery. The lessons he learned and taught to all who would listen are crucial for us to remember today: how regional evidence of Black political progress — or setbacks — can serve as a bellwether for racial progress at the national level.
Dunbar matured as a professional writer after the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, a time of profound political and constitutional changes that bolstered the ability of African Americans to elect Black leaders and combat racial prejudice, injustice and inequality.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-celebrating-independence-while-facing-inequality/