People of Color in Louisiana

Alice Dunbar Nelson was a social activist and reformer, journalist and poet. She was one of the first generation of free born African Americans after the Civil War. Most of her writing involves the crossing of the white and black color lines, and she was an important writer associated with the Harlem Renaissance, along with W. E. B. DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Nella Larson, George Schuyler, and Alain Locke. In this article Dunbar-Nelson examines slavery, the status of gens de couleur Louisiana society, and the role of people of color in the United States Civil War.