We Wear the Mask, 1895

Background: Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American writer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most well-known for his poetry, Dunbar also wrote four novels, numerous short stories, and lyrics for vaudeville musical shows. In collaboration with the composer Will Marion Cook, Dunbar wrote the lyrics for In Dahomey, the first musical written and performed entirely by African Americans and starring Bert Williams and George Walker. It was produced on Broadway in 1903. In this 1895 poem, Dunbar addresses the issue of double-consciousness for African Americans.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties,

Why should the world be over-wise.
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
     We wear the mask.

We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile,
But let the world dream otherwise,
    We wear the mask!

Source: Paul Laurence. Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask," from Majors and Minors: Poems (Toledo, OH: Hadley & Hadley Printers and Binders, 1895), 21.