Southwestern University’s Distinctive Collections and Archives is home to many works written by the poet and novelist Paul Laurence Dunbar. As one of the most influential Black writers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Dunbar’s poems and novels captured the struggles and racial prejudice experienced by Black Americans in post-emancipation society. Born to parents who were both slaves, Dunbar became one of the first Black writers to make a living solely from his works, a major accomplishment at the time. Some of Dunbar’s most powerful publications can be explored by visiting Distinctive Collections and Archives.