The Struggles of Black America Depicted in Dunbar’s We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an enigmatic and evocative poet whose work was

important for the furthering of the black literary canon. His works were groundbreaking

and were some of the first pieces by a black author to reach international acclaim. Although

his popularity blossomed over the span of his career, his life was filled with many

disappointments. This culminated in one of his most renown works, We Wear the Mask, in

which he explored the struggles faced by African Americans trying to carve out a life in

white society.

Dunbar was born on June 27, 1872 in Dayton, Ohio. His parents Joshua, a former

Civil War veteran of the 55th Massachusetts Infantry and Matilda Dunbar were former

slaves from Kentucky. (Smith) Both parents were literate and helped foster his love of

reading and literature from a young age. He wrote his first poem at the age of six and gave

his first public performance of poetry at the age of nine. Although his mother’s dream was

for him to become a minister, the pull of literature was too powerful for him to ignore.

Dunbar was an exceptional student. He was the only black student at his high school

and was very popular among his white peers—eventually becoming the president of the

literature society and editor of his school’s newspaper. He published his first two poems at

age 16; Our Martyred Soldiers and On the River. (Byers) Although he was an excellent and

well-loved student, he was unable to attend college or find work that fostered his natural

talents, and was forced to work as an elevator operator. He used this position to his

advantage, however, and sold his first self-published book of poetry, Oak and Ivory, to the
people he came into contact with—an action that eventually helped him turn a

profit. (Robinson)

It wasn’t until his second book of poems, Majors and Minors, that he received any

sort of acclaim. His work was discovered by renown critic Willian Dean Howells, who

published a glowing review of his work in Harper’s Weekly. (Byers) This led to Dunbar’s

work being published in other esteemed magazines like The Saturday Evening and Denver

Posts. He also published a few novels and wrote the lyrics for In Dahomey, the first

successful musical written and performed by black people. (Smith)

Although this success brought him international fame and allowed him to hobnob

with black leaders like Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass, it was not very

lucrative. He found himself strained financially and his marriage to fellow poet Alice Ruth

Moore did not alleviate any of the stress. (Byers) Bad news continued to pour in. Dunbar

contracted tuberculosis in 1900 and separated from his wife two years later. He descended

into alcoholism and passed away in 1906. (Smith)

One of Dunbar’s most evocative poems was We Wear the Mask, written and

published in 1895. In this poem, Dunbar explored the painful dichotomy between the face

people project to the general public versus their more private and intimate selves. While

many can relate to the sorrows expressed through his work, Dunbar was personally

speaking of the struggles faced by African Americans over hundreds of years; the forced

assimilation and erasure of their own identities in order to appeal and assuage their

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oppressors. Although these masks allowed one to better navigate the white world, it was

often at the detriment of ones’ humanity and personal integrity.

Such struggles were incredibly common for the average black American—from the

beginnings of the Middle Passage to the dawn of the modern era. Blacks have been told they

are not good enough; their bodies too dark, hair too curly, manner of speech too

fragmented to understand. They believed that they have to burn their hair, bleach their skin

and eradicate all traces of blackness—all evidence of their supposed inferiority, in order to

fit in with white society.

One of the biggest controversies in black society deals with hair. The texture of

black hair is often thicker and curlier than those of other races and is often considered

unattractive and unprofessional by white society. As a result of this negative, black men

and women were often forced to mask the true texture of their hair through various means

in an attempt to gain acceptance. (Rooks)

Most of the issues began after the end of slavery when African Americans began

striving for social mobility. Mostly white-owned cosmetic companies capitalized on these

desires and used this uncertainty to their advantage, advertising their wares exclusively in

magazines and newspapers targeting black customers. (Rooks) Numerous advertisements

spoke of the inferiority of afro-textured hair, using racist illustrations of frowning dark-

skinned black women juxtaposed with smiling lighter-skinned women with straight hair.

One advertisement for a supposed miracle “cure” that would magically straighten curly

hair declared:

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 You owe it to yourself, as well as to others who are interested in you, to make

yourself as attractive as possible. Attractiveness will contribute much to your

success—both socially and commercially. Positively nothing detracts so much from

your appearance as short, matted unattractive curly hair. (Rooks)

These negative advertisements hit their mark. The preferred choice of black hair

became emulations of straight non-black hairstyles. The desire for straight hair quickly

ballooned into a lucrative industry for items designed to mask what grew naturally out of

their scalps. Nothing was considered too harsh—caustic and deadly chemicals like lye or

sodium hydroxide, scalp-searing hot combs, or traction alopecia-causing hair extensions.

Wearing one’s hair in its natural state was an act of defiance. (Rooks)

The act of wearing the mask affected numerous facets of black society and shaped

the worldview and beliefs of many leaders of the community. W.E.B. DuBois spoke of the

‘talented tenth’, ten percent of black Americans whose contributions to society would uplift

the downtrodden ninety percent. Although most of his theory focused on positive

contributions to the world of science, literature and art, a lot of it dealt with proving that

African Americans could be as intelligent and ‘civilized’ as whites through assimilation and

adoption of their manners. DuBois heaped praises on those who shared his beliefs like poet

Countee Cullen and lambasted those who he believed did not represent the race in a good

light—those who refused to wear the mask or ripped it to pieces. Revolutionaries like

Marcus Garvey, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston were frequent targets of his ire.

(Robinson)

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 Dunbar himself was also a victim of the ‘mask’. Although he wrote many poems in

so-called Standard English and novels whose subject matter dealt with the struggles of non-

black society, most were critically panned by white audiences during his lifetime.

(Robinson) He was pressured by his mentors to write in a stereotypically southern dialect

and choose happier subject matter, something he wasn’t incredibly fond of, in order to

appeal to what was expected of black writers at the time. It was often a subject of derision

for him. Later in his life, he spoke of how much he hated the way he allowed William Dean

Howells to control his literary output, stating: “I see now very clearly that Mr. Howells has

done me irrevocable harm in the dictum he laid down regarding my dialect verse.” (Smith)

While it would be easy to point fingers and accuse those who ‘wore the mask’ of

betraying their race, one must remember that the masking of one’s true self came from a

place of fear and a desire to fit in. It was either ‘assimilate or else’; remaining true to

oneself could mean certain financial or social disgrace. Social mobility and the securement

of an easier financial future were seen as something to strive for, and it became incredibly

easy to lose sight of one’s true self in the process.

We Wear the Mask is still an incredibly relevant poem in the 21st century. Although

certain elements of black expression are now considered trendy, not much has changed.

The mask continues to be worn by many. However, it seems that with the popularity and

commodification of blackness, many African Americans in the entertainment industry are

expected to act a certain way; to exemplify the traits non-blacks consider behavior inherent

to Black Americans—loudness, cursing, brashness, the use of slang, etc. It is a callback to

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the minstrel shows of yore where actors, sometimes black themselves, painted themselves

darker and emulated all sorts of negative stereotypes about black Americans. (Robinson)

Battles about the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) versus

Standard English continue to be debated in the social and educational sphere, which forces

many blacks to continue to code-switch, changing the manner of speech they use to

converse with friends and family versus the way they communicate with society at large.

Hair continues to be a large state of contention in the black and outside communities and

many are forced to modify their hair in order to comply with discriminatory stances on

what is considered acceptable in the educational and professional arenas. All in all, it seems

little has changed since Dunbar put his pen to paper and exposed the white-hot grief about

being black in a society that politicizes and demeans ones’ very existence, forcing one to

hide their true selves behind a façade in order to succeed.

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 WORKS CITED

“Paul Laurence Dunbar.” African American Writers, by Valerie Smith, C. Scribner's Sons, 2001,

pp. 183–198.

“Paul Laurence Dunbar.” Encyclopedia of World Biography, by Paula K. Byers and Suzanne

Michele. Bourgoin, Gale, 2004, pp. 141–142.

Robinson, Lillian S. “Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Credit to His Race?” African American Review,

vol. 41, no. 2, 2007.

Rooks, Noliwe M. Hair Raising Beauty, Culture, and African American Women. Rutgers Univ.

Press, 2000.

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