The Stones of the Village

Alice Ruth Moore was born on 19th July 1875 in New Orleans where she was part of the multi-racial Creole community. She was the first generation seemingly born free after the Civil War and unusually for the times, obtained a university education which led to her becoming a teacher at a public school in New Orleans. In 1895, when she was 20, she published her first collection of short stories and poems, ‘Violets and Other Tales’, and moved to New York City where she co-founded and taught at the White Rose Mission, a Home for Girls. Alice was always politically active and sought to advance the position of black women. She began work as a journalist at the Woman’s Era newspaper where her work was seen by the established poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar. After corresponding for two years she joined him in Washington, DC, and they married in 1898. It was a difficult relationship, due mainly to Dunbar’s fragile health, alcoholism and depression. After a severe beating she left him an