James David Corrothers (July 2, 1869 – February 12, 1917)[1] was an African-American poet, journalist, and minister whom editor Timothy Thomas Fortune called "the coming poet of the race." When Corrothers died, W. E. B. Du Bois eulogized him as "a serious loss to the race and to literature."[2][3]
Corrothers gained early fame with his volume of poetry in "Negro dialect" but later expressed his regret about the volume.[6] He believed that poetry in "standard English" was more appropriate for the twentieth century.[7]
Corrothers shared a long friendship with his contemporary Paul Laurence Dunbar[8] and, after Dunbar's death, memorialized him with the poem "Paul Laurence Dunbar," published in Century Magazine (1912). In his autobiography, In Spite of the Handicap, Corrothers claimed credit for bringing Dunbar's work to the attention of William Dean Howells.
^Gaines, Kevin. "Assimilationist minstrelsy as racial uplift ideology: James D. Corrothers's literary quest for black leadership." American Quarterly (1993): 341
^"The Looking Glass," The Crisis, April 1917 p. 287
^James D. Corrothers, In Spite of the Handicap (New York: George H. Doran Company) 1916
^Bruce, Dickson D. "James Corrothers Reads a Book; or, the Lives of Sandy Jenkins." African American Review (1992): 665-673.
^Kevin Gaines "Assimilationist minstrelsy as Racial Uplift Ideology: James D. Corrothers's Literary Quest for Black Leadership." American Quarterly (1993)
^James D. Corrothers, In Spite of the Handicap (New York: George H. Doran Company) 1916, p. 143-144.
^Alexander, Eleanor. Lyrics of Sunshine and Shadow: The Tragic Courtship and Marriage of Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Ruth Moore: a History of Love and Violence Among the African American Elite. NYU Press, 2001. p. 15
