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When Rita Dove was a child, her father broke the race barrier in research chemistry When she grew up, she began breaking down barriers as a writer. In 1970 she was recognized at the White I-louse as one of the hundred most outstanding high school graduates in the United States. In 1973, she graduated summa cum laude (as well as Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi) with a degree in English and then spent the next two summers on Fuibright scholarships to Germany Dove published her first book of poetry in 1980, and in 1987 won the Pulitzer Prize for a book of poems about her grandparents. In 1993. she became the youngest person and the first African American to serve as poet laureate of the United States. In addition to poetry Dove has written and published essays, stories, and a play that was performed in theatres around the world. Currently she is Commonwealth Professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, She and her husband, the writer Fred Viebahn, have a grown daughter

W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a radical attacker of injustice and defender of freedom for blacks, considered one of the most influential black leaders of the first half of the twentieth century. Du Bois helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Between 1897 and 1914 Du Bois conducted many studies of black society in America and published sixteen research papers on his findings, He began these investigations with the belief that social science could provide answers to racial problems—however Du Bois gradually concluded that in a climate of racism, social change could only be accomplished through agitation and protest. Initially, Du Bois was a firm supporter of black capitalism, but slowly he edged to the left until by 1905 he was drawn to Socialism and Marxism. In 1961 Du Bois became disillusioned with the United States and moved to Ghana, joined the Communist Party and one year later renounced his American citizenship. Du Bois died in 1963 in Accra, shortly after becoming a Ghanaian citizen.

One of the first African Americans to gain national recognition as a poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar was born in Ohio in 1872, the son of former slaves, Dunbar died at the early age of 33, but was quite prolific in his work, writing many short stories, novels, plays, songs, essays, and the poetry he became most famous for. He gave credit for his success to his mother, whose excitement for poetry spurred him to begin writing and reciting poems at age six. Popular with both black and white readers of his day Dunbar’s style encompasses two distinct voices—the standard English of classical poets and the evocative dialect of turn-of-the.century black America, He was very gifted in using this dialect to convey character, His poetry often addresses the difficulties encountered by blacks in America,