Paul Laurence Dunbar Sculpture Announced
This year, June 27 will mark the 150th Anniversary of the birth of one of Dayton's most important and beloved citizens, Mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Paul Laurence Dunbar Sculpture Announced
Dayton community invited to help make the sculpture a reality!
This year, June 27 will mark the 150th Anniversary of the birth of one of Dayton’s most important and beloved citizens, Mr. Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was an acclaimed American poet, novelist and lyricist. Dunbar was born and died in Dayton and was the first African American who was able to support himself with his writing, as well as being the first African American poet to receive an international reputation.
Dunbar will be honored and immortalized with a life-size bronze sculpture, which will welcome visitors at the entrance plaza of the Dayton Metro Library’s new West-Dayton Branch. The efforts to raise the funds required to commission the sculpture are being led by a group of community volunteers chaired by internationally known American artist Willis “Bing” Davis and the Honorable Judge Walter Rice. Committee members include Tim Kambitsch, Brady Kress, J. Thomas Maultsby, the Honorable Mayor Jeffrey J. Mimms, Jr., Michael R. Roediger and Jenell R. Ross. The Committee officially announced the public efforts to raise funds for the project at yesterday’s, February 23, City of Dayton Commissioner’s meeting.
How can the Community Support:
Partnering with The Dayton Foundation, the Paul Laurence Dunbar Statue Fund has been established. Gifts can be made on The Dayton Foundation’s website at daytonfoundation.org indicating the Paul Laurence Dunbar Statue Fund #8590. Check’s may also be made out to The Dayton Foundation and sent to 1401 S. Main St, #100, Dayton, OH 45409. Please also reference Fund #8590.
Dunbar was born in Dayton on June 27, 1872, to two formerly enslaved parents from Kentucky. He died in Dayton on February 9, 1906, at the early age of 33.
He began showing literary promise while still in high school in Dayton, where he lived with his widowed mother. The only African American in his class, he became class president and class poet. By 1889, two years before he graduated, he had already published poems in the Dayton Herald and worked as editor of the short-lived Dayton Tattler, a Black newspaper published by classmate Orville Wright.
Dunbar aspired to a career in law, but his mother’s financial situation precluded his university education. He consequently sought employment with various Dayton businesses, including newspapers, only to be rejected because of his race. He finally settled for work as an elevator operator, a job that allowed him time to continue writing. At this time, Dunbar produced articles, short stories, and poems, including several in the dialect style that later earned him fame.
In 1892 Dunbar was invited by one of his former teachers to address the Western Association of Writers, then convening in Dayton at what is now known as the Victoria Theatre. At the meeting, Dunbar befriended James Newton Matthews, who subsequently praised Dunbar’s work in a letter to an Illinois newspaper. Matthews’s letter was eventually reprinted by newspapers throughout the country, bringing Dunbar recognition outside Dayton. Dunbar remains nationally known as one of the finest American poets.
About the Artist:
Ed Hamilton has been commissioned to create the life-size sculpture of Dunbar. Hamilton was born in 1947 in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a resident of Louisville, Kentucky. Hamilton is a graduate of the Louisville School of Art, class of 1969. While working on his certification to teach in the public school system, Ed met the late Sculptor, Barney Bright, whom he worked for as an apprentice and built a lasting friendship with while he continued his quest to have his own sculpting studio.
In 2000, he received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Spalding University. In 2001 he was inducted into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians, sponsored by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. In 2004, he received two Honorary Doctor of Arts Degrees from the University of Louisville and an Honorary Doctor of Arts Degree from Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky.
In 2001 Hamilton was one of four jurors that selected the winning design for the Patriots Peace Memorial placed in Louisville, Kentucky, and in 2005 Hamilton was one of eight jurors for the International Andrew Young Memorial in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.
Hamilton has sculpted many works, including “Spirit of Freedom,” a National Memorial in the District of Columbia which achieved worldwide acclaim. The statue is a tribute to the Colored Soldiers and Sailors of the Civil War and stands at 10th and U Streets NW in Washington D.C. It was dedicated on July 18, 1998.
Other public memorials of note include a memorial plaque in honor of Dr. Thomas Clark, a Kentucky Historian, which resides in the lobby of the Frankfort Historical Center in Frankfort, Kentucky; and the Vic Hellard, Jr. Memorial Plaque installed in the State Capital building in Frankfort, Kentucky; and the Tree of Life Menorah on the exterior wall of The Temple in Louisville, Kentucky, a collaborative work with C. Robert Markert, artist, sculptor and friend.
In May of 2004, a life-size frontier family sculpture titled “Migration to the West” was installed in the lobby of the new Frazier Historical Arms Museum, in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.
The Abraham Lincoln Memorial at Waterfront Plaza was done at the behest of the Downtown Development Corporation, Louisville, Kentucky and was dedicated in 2009.
Hamilton was honored to be selected to create a Christmas Tree Ornament for First Lady Laura Bush’s Christmas Tree at the White House 2008.
In 2006, Hamilton published his book, The Birth of an Artist, a Journey of Discovery, published by Evanston Publishing of Chicago Spectrum Press.
