Charles R. Dinkins: Published Collection of Over 100 Religious and Secular Poems

In 1904, Charles Roundtree Dinkins published “Lyrics of Love,” a collection of more than one hundred of his religious and secular poems.

Dinkins, from Columbia, South Carolina, was a minister and an African American community leader.

However, the same advertisement by white publishers also quoted the Charleston News and Courier’s review, which was based on stereotypes: “These verses by a colored clergyman of Columbia have all the melody and fervor of the emotional race to which the author belongs.”

Dinkins’ poems about religion and love are typical in their themes and conservative structure, and many of his better-known peers among black writers sounded these same notes.

Other black writers soon moved beyond Dinkins by creating independent, even nationalist, artistic forms aimed solely at black audiences.