The brief but shining life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet who gave dignity to the Black experience

A 1902 portrait of Paul Lawrence Dunbar. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Paul Laurence Dunbar was only 33 years old when he died in 1906.

In his short yet prolific life, Dunbar used folk dialect to give voice and dignity to the experience of Black Americans at the turn of the 20th century. He was the first Black American to make a living as a writer and was seminal in the start of the New Negro Movement and Harlem Renaissance.