Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Courtship and Marriage of Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore

A remarkable story of tortured love among the African American elite

When acclaimed African American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar saw a photo of Alice Ruth Moore in a literary magazine in 1895, he sparked off one of the most important-and turbulent-romances of turn-of-the-century America.

During the six years of their courtship and marriage, Paul and Alice enjoyed literary acclaim, received recognition as the vanguard of African American accomplishment, and gained access to elite white society. But beneath the idyllic veneer, Alice's life was marred by rape and brutality, Paul's by alcoholism, depression, sickness, and artistic self-doubt. After suffering a near-fatal beating in 1902, Alice left him to become an important suffragist, and when Paul died four years later, she had answered his ardent letters for reconciliation with only a single telegram: "No."