The Poet and The Baby - Paul Laurence Dunbar

What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They had felt, as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in music, in oratory, in several of the other arts, here was the first instance of an American negro who had evinced innate distinction in literature. (W.D. Howells in the Introduction to The Compete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar)